As a sweetener, use sparingly as desired.

When talking about stevia you need to understand that stevia is not one product or even one type of product. Stevia starts as a simple herbal leaf.

Stevia’s primary use today is as a sweetener. In this role it is quite versatile as it is incredibly sweet, calorie-free and non-glycemic (does not cause changes in blood sugar). Public recognition, acceptance and use of stevia exploded in 2008 when the US government agreed that stevia was safe and officially approved its use as a sweetener both by consumers and for inclusion in food and beverage manufacturing.

Since then, use, sales and research into stevia has exploded. The great news for consumers is that the research has yielded a great variety of stevia raw material (that manufacturers use to make stevia products like ours and food manufacturers use in their products).

Raw stevia leaves are not commonly used. This is because despite the leaf being sweet, the veins of the leaf are quite bitter (bitter enough in some cases to overcome the sweetness of the leaf itself). The extensive research on stevia found that “white” powdered extracts effectively concentrate the sweetness of the leaves while not incorporating any of the veins’ bitterness.