Stevia is from the sunflower family and consists of about 150 species of herbs and shrubs. It's native to tropical South America and Central America. It's also known as sweet leaf or sugarleaf. Stevia's sweet taste has a slower onset and longer duration than that of sugar.

 

Stevia can be 30-300 times sweeter, by concentration, than sugar depending on the extract used. It seems to show promise in medical research as a sugar substitute for diabetics and people on a low carbohydrate diet.

 

Stevia has not yet been approved by the FDA as a Food Additive and therefore cannot be used widely in sodas and other major marketing products. It is used widely in Japan and other countries. Coca-Cola has made a Stevia-derived sweetener named Rebiana. When something is not kept in it's pure state though is when the problems arise. A Stevia-derived sweetener means that other things have been added to the Stevia to make it patentable by the Coca-Cola company. We could have problems then.

 

So far I have not seen any major problems with Stevia. If you are allergic to anything in the Sunflower family you might have a problem with using Stevia. And like many things, using too much of it will cause problems too.

 

Use a little and enjoy.