Organic Sugar Substitute: Stevia
I mentioned Stevia briefly in my post about my yummy breakfast find, Kashi GoLean hot cereal. Stevia was such a great find for me, I wanted to talk more about it and bring it to the attention of any dieters who might come along and find this post. What has me so excited about it is that I’ve been searching for a decent sugar substitute that would not turn off my taste buds – - the bonus in Stevia is that it is 100% all natural… organic!
The true test for me, however, was this: how does it taste in my morning coffee?
On my diet – there is just one thing I cannot.. .no matter HOW BAD I want to lose the weight, I just cannot, for the life of me, compromise and that is my coffee. I know there are a lot of people out there who feel the same.
Splenda in coffee just is not the same – - neither are any of the other substitutes I’ve found.
I came across Stevia quite by accident one day while searching for organic foods online. I even recommended it to my mother, who is a diabetic and struggles with sugar substitute issues, as well. She is even more picky than I am – - and she’s a faithful Stevia user now!
Here’s the low-down for you on the product (which you can usually find at your local health food store, or in the health/organic section of your grocery):
- Stevia has ZERO calories. Yep – you heard it… ZERO.. as in NONE
- Stevia has a glycemic index of… yea, you guessed it… ZERO
- It is all natural and 100% organic
- Stevia is a naturally sweet plant native to Paraguay
- Stevia is 30 times sweeter than sugar in its unprocessed form
- The pure glycosides that are extracted from the Stevia leaves are 250-400 times sweeter than sugar
- For those of Jewish faith, Stevia is 100% kosher
- You can use Stevia not only for sweetening drinks like tea and coffee and quick meals like on grapefruit or cereal – but you can bake with Stevia, as well. There are hundreds of recipes – - below, I reference a Stevia cookbook with some great recipe ideas
- Be aware of the Stevia/Sugar conversion when using it, though – - remember, it is 30 TIMES SWEETER THAN SUGAR! Dont’ make the mistake of using the same volume of Stevia as you would with regular sugar. Below is a conversion table
What are Stevia’s equivilancies to sugar?
Some Great Stevia Recipe Books:
Stevia Sweet Recipes: Sugar-Free-Naturally
A review from Amazon.com says:Of the 3 Stevia cookbooks I own, this is my favorite. I would think that most people who want to use stevia, are looking for healthy too, and lower carb, not just how to replace sugar with stevia. He uses whole grains in his recipies, which are much lower on the glycemic index than their refined counter parts, making them good for diabetics and some less restrictive low carb diets. I was looking for a recipe for zucchini bread and none of the books had one, so I took his Oatmeal Banana Bread recipe and replaced the fruit with zucchini and it came out fantastic! I could do that because the basic recipe is sound. He gives a lot of info on stevia including the fact that you have to adjust it to your taste. He covers pretty much all the bases in this book, except as one person pointed out, the use of liquid stevia, other than to say that he prefers to use the powders to the liquid.
Sensational Stevia Desserts
A review from Amazon.com says:This is a good book. It gives you the nutritional breakdowns which is nice, and compares them to the same products made with sugar. She uses healthy ingredients, but not much in the way of whole grains. It’s definitely low-carb friendly, as you can easily see how many carbs each recipe will set you back. None of the recipies include other sugar sources which is nice to see in a stevia cookbook.
Stevia: Naturally Sweet Recipes for Desserts, Drinks, and More
A review from Amazon.com says: I have been using stevia as my SOLE sugar replacement for just about a year now with the aid of several cookbooks to keep me going. I find it hard to use many recipes that ask for non-nutritive sweeteners because they usually happen to be low-carb, high-protein/fat, and animal products abound. My first breath of fresh air to this dilema was this book. It uses whole grain flours and provides many purely vegetarian (vegan) alternative recipes.