Using Stevia in Baking

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Arky

Senior Cook
Joined
Jul 18, 2009
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299
I've been using stevia now for just over a year and I really like it as a substitute for table sugar. I use it in my coffee and iced tea, in cereal, hot and cold, but I have no experience in baking with it.

For those who are just discovering it (the stevia brand Truvia has recently been promoted in a national ad campaign.) It is a natural substance derived from the leaves of the stevia plant found in Central America. Ounce for ounce it is 300 times sweeter than table sugar (1 cup of sugar equals 1 teaspoon of stevia), has 0 calories and 0 harmful effects. It is perfect for diabetics!

I use the KAL brand and comes with a tiny scoop in the container (the size of a salt shaker yet has 990 servings!) The down side of baking with stevia, so I hear, is that is does not caramelize (turn brown), but has anyone had any bad baking experiences with it?

I do know that is has no aftertaste - as long as you don't use too much! With stevia, when in doubt, less is better.
 
If you do not use MSG because there is a chance it is harmful to your health then you may want to rethink using stevia as it has had similar complaints that it is very bad for you. The FDA even labeled it as an unsafe food additive in 1991.

I personally do not have a problem with it. I have never used it, but I would have no problem trying it.
 
If you do not use MSG because there is a chance it is harmful to your health then you may want to rethink using stevia as it has had similar complaints that it is very bad for you. The FDA even labeled it as an unsafe food additive in 1991.

I personally do not have a problem with it. I have never used it, but I would have no problem trying it.

December, 2008

"FDA Approves Stevia"

Good News! The FDA has finally approved Stevia for use as a sugar substitute.
After over a decade of economic special interests seeming to block the way (i.e., NutraSweet), the FDA has finally approved the healthy herb Stevia as a natural sweetener to add to foods and sodas.
In fact, the first Stevia-sweetened soft drink, "Sprite Green" by Coca-Cola, is on its way to stores.
Pepsi said its first Stevia product, SoBe Lifewater, should hit store shelves next week, and Trop50, a Stevia-sweetened light orange juice product, is due out in January.
Dr. Pepper Snapple, the No. 3 soft drink company, said on Thursday it will market Stevia within a few weeks.
We have recommended Stevia as a safe and healthy natural sweetener for decades — even as the FDA, seemingly driven by someone heavily on the Nutrasweet payroll (though this is simply my impression, of course, without definite evidence) required the first and only book burning demanded by the U.S. government — which just happened to be books recommending Stevia. Till now, the FDA would not allow Stevia to be added as a food sweetener. Instead, it could only be added as a "nutrient."
Stevia is a safe, healthy and calorie free natural sweetener. Expect the media to jump all over bizarre stories raising questions of its safety (which will be fed to the media by publicists for the sugar, Splenda and Nutrasweet trade groups trying to protect their market share). In the middle of their trying to scare you away from this healthy sweetener and back to their toxic ones, let yourself enjoy watching an example of American marketing hype in action. And indulge your sweet tooth ;-)"
 
I never said they did not eventually approve it. I stand by what I said. They did label it as an unsafe food additive. I am just saying that based on what you said in the MSG thread
Arky said:
I still prefer to err on the side of caution when possible and not play Russian Roulette with my health or the health of my guests
you may want to reconsider stevia. Not trying to pick a fight here. Just pointing out that you were vehemently against one substance because there was questions over whether it is safe, but you have no problem using another whose safety is also in question. By all means use what you are comfortable with though.
 
No, there is no question about it being safe, being one of the most closely studied foods in the history of the world. There are even more studies concerning stevia than there are MSG. Europe has been using stevia for decades. It comes out squeeky clean for any harmful effects! And an important point is that it is a "natural" sweetner as opposed to a man made additive. It is a Godsend for us diabetics!
 
1. There is plenty of question as to its safety. For the record, I think it is safe, but there is controversy surrounding it the same way there is controversy surrounding MSG.

2. I am not sure how you can be so sure there are more studies on stevia than MSG. I doubt your counted up the thousands of studies on each and compared the numbers.

3. Just as stevia has been used in Europe for decades, MSG has been used in Asia for decades, and I would presume by many more people, not to mention it has been used in America for decades too.

4. Just because something is natural does not mean it is harmless. Try sitting out in the sun for a few hours without sunscreen.

Again, I have no problem with people using stevia. I am happy there is something for diabetics to use.
 
Just because something is natural does not mean it is harmless. Try sitting out in the sun for a few hours without sunscreen.]

That's interesting that you should mention sitting out in the sun. I'm assuming you are referring to getting skin cancer due to excess sun exposure without protection. Well, it turns out that is exactly what doctors are now recommending, in moderation of course. Particularly for children!

Vitamin D deficiency common in U.S. children

CNN: 4:41 p.m. EDT, Mon August 3, 2009

Vitamin D deficiency common in U.S. children - CNN.com

One more quote from a Reuters story:
"Parents can help their children get enough vitamin D by making sure they spend at least 15 to 20 minutes in the sun without sunscreen."

I guess it all boils down to use all things in moderation.
 
I guess it all boils down to use all things in moderation.
Which is exactly the point that multiple people tried making about MSG. Yes, in moderation all of these things are essentially harmless.
 
I bought Stevia to try because of this thread. My conclusion is that for me it is not worth it. Even though Stevia is supposed to be much sweeter than sugar, my wife and I did not find that to be the case. The first time she used it in her coffee she put package after package in and could not get to the desired sweetness. When she tried it in her tea her results were much better. I did not have the same luck though. When I tried it in my tea it got close to sweet, but never over that threshold.

As far as sugar substitutes go, I would rack it as the one that tastes the best and if I HAD to use a sugar sub then this is what I would use, but since I am luckily not in that situation I will continue to use real sugar.
 
Truvia is not stevia. It's leading ingredient by weight is an alcohol sugar. And there's no unmodified stevia in it. Now the alcohol is added in an attempt to give it a more natural sugar taste, sugar taste being different from sweetness. And it also help in the process of creating a granular state similar to table sugar. Like all flavors, the sensation can be different for different individuals. And no matter how sweet, the sensation that's expect from a sweetened cup of coffee can seem to be lacking if the flavor isn't right.

Stevia extract powders often contain considerable maltodextrin to try to bring the sweetening power down to equivalent volumes of sugar. But there's another taste factor. No sugar substitute is going to taste like sugar to everyone, and their guess as to how to balance sweetness with the particular flavor of the concoction will be close to right or far from it, depending on the individual.

It's kind of like the recent chicken stock thing. Some are completely happy with a largely chemical composition that emulates to some degree the flavor. They will happily use the fake. Others will gag on it and will accept the flavor of nothing but actual stock. It's the curse of the fake food engineer's existence to be forever trying for balance.
 
GLC, that reminds me of high fructose corn syrup. Some people can't taste that it isn't sugar. I can't stand the Coca Cola we get in Quebec, because of the HFCS. I have a friend who used to stock up on kosher for passover Coca Cola, because it isn't made with grain.
 
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I don't know. I'd like to see those people play "Pick the Cane Sugar" with the corn syrup and "throwback" versions of Pepsi and Coke. Human perception is such that even they can't be sure themselves if they're reacting to the ingredients or the label. And I have no faith at all in the judgment when it's a matter of claiming "it tasted better when I was a kid." Everything tasted better when we were kids, from charred marshmallows to blackened wieners. It's not that there's not a difference in flavor. It's whether anyone can detect the difference in the drink. It's all pretty much sugared battery acid, anyway.
 
I don't know. I'd like to see those people play "Pick the Cane Sugar" with the corn syrup and "throwback" versions of Pepsi and Coke. Human perception is such that even they can't be sure themselves if they're reacting to the ingredients or the label. And I have no faith at all in the judgment when it's a matter of claiming "it tasted better when I was a kid." Everything tasted better when we were kids, from charred marshmallows to blackened wieners. It's not that there's not a difference in flavor. It's whether anyone can detect the difference in the drink. It's all pretty much sugared battery acid, anyway.

I usually would agree with your point of view. But, in this case, I noticed because I wasn't much of a Coke drinker. They brought out "New Coke" and everyone complained, so they brought back "Coke Classic". I tasted each of them and concurred. Then I didn't drink any Coke for about half a year. When I did, much to my surprise, my reaction was bleh! That's just like the new stuff. They had switched the "Coke Classic" by increments so people didn't notice. Since I hadn't had it for a while, I noticed.
 
Since I rarely consume HFCS anymore, I can detect it in things like soft drinks where there is a lot of it. To me it has a distinct flavor and mouthfeel that real sugar doesn't have.
 
I can tell the difference between Pepsi and Pepsi Throwback, tastes different. Regular Pepsi with HFCS I drink and drink and drink and never get enough. Pepsi Throwback can take me three days to finish one bottle. My body is looking for the glucose.

The difference also shows up in my blood sugars, my body uses the sugar in Throwback, it stores the HFCS in Regular Pepsi...throws my bloodwork completely off. Cane Sugar or I won't eat/drink it.
 
I have a great big 275g bag of Stevia in the Raw that I will give to anyone who stops by to pick it up. It tastes funny! Everything I've tried using it in ended up tasting funny, too! It also has a terrible aftertaste.

I will stick with my Agave nectar. It tastes good and has a low glysemic index so it won't spike your blood sugar. The only problem is it is a bit expensive in the groshree store, but I can get twice the amount for about the same price at TJ Maxx.
 

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