Stevia as a Sweetener

So I came upon this little internet phenomenon and thought it was cool enough to post for you all. Enjoy this wonderful Chocolate Cake in a Mug!

Ingredients

• 4 tablespoons, self raising flower
• 1 teaspoon of Stevia Extract in the Raw
• 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
• 1 egg
• 3 tablespoons of non-fat milk
• 1 tablespoon of oil

Directions

1. Mix flour, stevia and cocoa: Spoon in 1 egg.
2. Pour in milk and oil, and mix well.
3. Put in microwave for 3 minutes on maximum power. (1000watt)
4. Wait until it stops rising and let it set in the mug.
5. Tip contents out of mug onto saucer and enjoy while warm and delicious!

I’m sure you’ve seen those ads run by the corn people that try to dispell rumors about how bad high fructose corn syrup is.  You can see one of the ads here. They even made a website. Truth be told, when I first saw the particular ad I linked to here, I did pause for a second to think, “Yeah, what DO they say about high fructose corn syrup?” But unlike the marketers for the corn people think, I’m not going to go visit their propaganda site. As a health conscious individual and a proponent of using stevia as a sweetener, I’m going to do research on my own and draw my own conclusions.  So here’s what I learned about High Fructose Corn Syrup:

1. It is indeed, made from corn
2. Corn is milled into corn starch
3. Corn starch is processed into glucose
4. The glucose is then enzymed to become fructose

So far, so good. Arguably all-natural, in a Splenda kind of way, I guess. But then why would people say those horrible things about high fructose corn syrup? You know, those mean things that the ad wants you to define but you can’t. Well, let’s explore. First off, let’s address the name itself – “High Fructose Corn Syrup.” Just the name itself makes you think that we’re consuming something in a large quantity already. But that name is misleading. The “high” part of “high fructose” is only in relation to the level of normal fructose itself, not to sweeteners in general.

For example, the NYT reports that the high fructose corn syrup you can find in pop (or soda to you easterners) is 55% fructose, 45%glucose, where as regular white sugar is 50% fructose, 50% glucose.  No big difference whatsoever. So there’s nothing particularly damning about high fructose corn syrup at this point. It is, indeed, in line with regular sugar, so why the hate people?

Well, I think it goes back to something that stuck out funny about that video I linked to. I had to rewind it several times to understand what the woman pouring the juice was saying. She said, “…and that like sugar, it’s fine in moderation.”  I could understand their entire exchange, except for this little segment. And I wonder if it’s on purpose. (You know, like when you’re answering a question but you’re not sure of the answer, you muffle it…)

“Fine in moderation.” Now come on people, do we, as Americans, do anything in moderation? If we did, we wouldn’t buy houses we couldn’t afford, we wouldn’t have a national personal savings rate of -.5%, and we would not be growing fatter and fatter at alarming rates since the 1950’s. BTW, this is also something that people point to when they say high fructose corn syrup is the fat making culprit. Because it was introduced in the mid 50’s, and that’s when people started getting fat. I don’t think that’s particularly fair, but let me continue with my “in moderation” thought.

So, the ad says that high fructose corn syrup, like table sugar, when consumed in moderation, is fine. So let me ask you, dear reader, what do you think is a moderate yearly amount of high fructose corn syrup for an individual to consume? Ah, there’s the rub. There’s no handbook is there that says, Jimmy, you can consume ten cups of high fructose corn syrup each year. So what do you think moderate means? My example of ten cups seems about right doesn’t it? Well, no. Because high fructose corn syrup is in almost everything you eat, from wonderbread to yoghurt, you’re actually consuming a whole lot more than you think. Estimates put the average American’s consumption of high fructose corn syrup at 40 to 70 pounds per year!!! Let me put that into perspective. Every year, you are consuming a 5 year old to a 10 year old child’s weight in high fructose corn syrup. Go ahead, munch on that! Imagine you’re in Willy Wonka’s factory and there’s a 10 year old child sized piece of candy. Would you eat it all? I think not? That’s not being moderate!

I’m sure if you ate a 10 year old child’s bodyweight worth of anything, you’d gain some pounds. But when it comes to sweeteners, you really don’t have to do that. With something like stevia, which is 200-300 times sweeter than sugar, you don’t have to consume all that sugar. If you ate the same as you do now, and everything is using a stevia sweetener like Stevia Extract in the Raw instead of high fructose corn syrup, you’d consume only .23 pounds worth of stevia in the entire year. Something to think about people!