I was wondering how safe Stevia is compared to other sweeteners. Should someone be concerned about it raising insulin levels or not? Your thoughts please.
Cy Wilson wrote a good article comparing the safety of stevia and sucralose (Splenda):
Stevia tastes horrible to me so I don’t use it. However, I’ve dieted with and without using splenda and there was no difference. If you are on top of your calorie intake, using or not using any low-calorie sweetener is not going to matter.
I would not recommend it. I stopped taking a protein powder that contained it because it was messing with my digestive system… of course everyone is different.
Also, I remember reading some bad side effects about it. So those two factors led me to scrap the stevia product.
supposed to increase insulin sensitivity and be good for ya
I use Stevia and like it (though I hardly use ANY sweetners, but when I do it’s stevia.)
One of the proteins powders I really like has stevia in it.
Like mostly things…do enough searching you SHOULD find:
- Groups that love it and say that it cures all diseases
- Groups that love it, but know it’s not the end all be all.
- Groups that say it CAUSES all sorts of problems…including our current economic problems.
- Groups that say the people in #3 are just part of the sugar industry, and that they have a stranglehold on the FDA.
- Groups that say the people in #4 are conspiracy theorists.
- etc.
In the end, I did all the reading I could. Deemed it safe enough for me, tried it, liked it, and use it.
@Andersons - I don’t find stevia has any taste…were you trying it straight or using a lot of it? All I get from it is a bit of a sweetness on my tongue, but no taste.