A Primal Primer: Stevia
After last week’s article many of you asked about a natural alternative to sugar and artificial sweeteners: stevia. It is widely used in the low carb community to satisfy sugar cravings or simply add a touch of sweetness to a hot beverage or dessert, but should it be? What is stevia? Is it safe? What is its effect on insulin, if any, and does it have a place in a Primal Blueprint eating strategy? Let’s investigate.
Stevia is an herbaceous family of plants, 240 species strong, that grows in sub-tropical and tropical America (mostly South and Central, but some North). Stevia the sweetener refers to stevia rebaudiana, the plant and its leaves, which you can grow and use as or with tea (it was traditionally paired with yerba mate in South America) or, dried and powdered, as a sugar substitute that you sprinkle on. It’s apparently quite easy to grow (according to the stevia seller who tries to get me to buy a plant or two whenever I’m at the Santa Monica farmers’ market), and the raw leaf is very sweet.
Most stevia you’ll come across isn’t in its raw, unprocessed form, but in powdered or liquid extract form. The “sweet” lies in the steviol glycosides – stevioside and rebaudioside – which are isolated in these extracts. Some products use just one, while others use both stevioside and rebaudioside. Stevioside is the most prevalent glycoside in stevia, and some say it provides the bitter aftertaste that people sometimes complain about; rebaudioside is said to be the better tasting steviol glycoside, with far less bitterness. Most of the “raw or natural” stevia products use the full range of glycosides, but the more processed brands will most likely isolate one or more of the steviol glycosides. The popular Truvia brand of stevia products uses only rebaudioside, as do both PureVia and Enliten. Different brands provide different conversion rates, but compared to sucrose, stevioside is generally about 250-300 times as sweet and rebaudioside is about 350-450 times as sweet.
Does Stevia Affect Insulin?
There is one in vitro study that showed stevioside acts directly on pancreatic beta cells to stimulate insulin secretion and another which shows similarly insulinotropic effects of rebaudioside, which may give you pause. Insulin secretion sounds like an insulin spike, no? And since we tend to be wary of unneeded insulin spikes, maybe we should avoid stevia. It’s not so simple, of course. For one, this was an in vitro study, performed in a super-controlled laboratory petri dish type setting; this was not an in vivo study of animals or people eating stevia in a natural, organic way. The results of in vitro studies are notorious for not panning out when you try to replicate them in vivo. Secondly, insulin secretion isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I mean, we need it to shuttle nutrients into cells, and we’d die without it. As I mentioned in the dairy post a few weeks back, insulin is millions upon millions of years old. It’s been preserved throughout history because it’s an essential hormone. It’s not always the bad guy, especially if you’re insulin sensitive.
In fact, the evidence is mounting that stevia actually is an insulin sensitizer that can aid in glucose tolerance and clearance after a meal. The Japanese have been using stevia for decades in the treatment of type 2 diabetics. Let’s look at a few recent studies. In fructose-fed rats, a single instance of oral stevioside increased insulin sensitivity and reduced postprandial blood glucose in a dose-dependent manner. The same study also found that diabetic rats given stevioside required less exogenous insulin for the same effect. Taken together, these results suggest that stevia may not just be a good sugar substitute for diabetics, but an effective supplement for treatment of their insulin resistance.
Another study looked at the postprandial effects of stevia, sucrose, and aspartame in human subjects. Compared to sucrose eaters, stevia eaters showed lower postprandial blood sugar levels. Compared to both sucrose and aspartame eaters, stevia eaters had far lower postprandial insulin levels. Furthermore, eating stevia did not induce increased appetite throughout the day, indicating stable blood sugar and satiety levels. Another strike in stevia’s favor.
Any Other Effects?
There are other potential benefits to using stevia unrelated to its apparent benefits on glycemic control. Here are a few studies I was able to dig up:
- When combined with inulin, a soluble prebiotic fiber, low-dose stevia increased HDL while lowering overall lipids in male rats. Alone, low-dose stevia lowered cholesterol without the potentially beneficial effect on HDL. It’s also useful to note that high-dose stevia negatively affected some toxic parameters – so don’t eat spoonfuls of stevia (not that you would) – but long term low-dose stevia was deemed safe.
- Lipid numbers are fun and all, but we’re really interested in avoiding atherosclerotic plaque buildup. In mice treated with stevioside, oxidized LDL was reduced, overall plaque volume was reduced, and insulin sensitivity increased. Overall, atherosclerosis was reduced in the stevioside-treated mice. I couldn’t dig up exactly how they were “treated,” however, but they were given doses of 10 mg/kg.
- In another study, mice memory was impaired by administration of scopolamine, an anticholigernic found in the intensely hallucinogenic jimson weed (or devil’s weed) and datura. Impaired mice were given oral stevioside (250 mg/kg) and tested for memory retention. Memory deficit was largely reversed with administration of stevioside, which also reduced the brain oxidative damage caused by scopolamine. Clinically relevant? Perhaps not, but it’s interesting.
- A two-year randomized, placebo-controlled study of Chinese patients with mild hypertension (which a rather large swath of society probably suffers from) found that oral stevioside intake significantly reduced systolic and diastolic blood pressure. Patients either took a 500 mg capsule of stevioside or a placebo three times a day for two years. The hypertension situation improved across the board and no downsides were reported or detected. Also of note is the fact that slightly more patients in the placebo group developed left ventricular hypertrophy, a pathological thickening of the heart muscle. Of course, another study using far lower doses (up to 15 mg/kg/day) found no anti-hypertensive effects, so it appears that the dose is key. Maybe somewhere in the middle works well, as one study in hypertensive dogs showed: they used 200 mg/kg to normalize blood pressure in the canine subjects.
We can think about stevia as a Primal sugar alternative with some potentially therapeutic effects. Kind of like cinnamon or turmeric, we don’t consume it for the calories or as literal fuel for our bodies, but for flavor, variety, and, possibly, the health benefits. It may induce insulin secretion, but it increases insulin sensitivity, reduces blood glucose (i.e., the insulin is doing its job), and does not increase appetite. It’s been used by humans for hundreds of years and by diabetic patients in Asia for decades. The goofy health food store dude who claims aspartame was created by Donald Rumsfeld to give us cancer may be a vociferous supporter of it, but don’t hold that against stevia. I’m a fan of the stuff and recommend it as a Primal way to satisfy a sweet tooth.
What do you guys think of stevia? Love it? Hate it? Have you ever used its potential therapeutic effects? Let me know in the comment section!
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Posted By: Mark Sisson
No thanks, I don’t feel the need to sweeten anything. In fact, I have to force myself to eat fresh fruit. But I do have trouble with the salt shaker.
Then switch to a brand which is primarily potassium chloride then. I use LoSalt (only available in the UK, IIRC) which is 66% KCl and 33% NaCl
I use stevia in a few things, like iced coffee, and glad to know what caused some brands I tried to be disgusting while others are good. Many thanks for this blog.
I have tried the NOW brand stevia, as that was supposed to have less of a bitter aftertaste. I rarely use it, though, as I found myself eating more and more of things sweetened with stevia…almost like regular sugar cravings. I find the taste of stevia to be too sweet. The whole purpose behind going Primal/Paleo (for me, at least) was to stop the sugar cravings. Now, if I want something sweet, I’ll just reach for a piece of fruit–just the right amount of sweetness and no aftertaste!
I gave up Diet Pepsi for the soda, Zevia. It comes in many flavors, lemon lime, cola, and ginger ale just to name a few. I really enjoy it when I want a soda. It’s made with Stevie and other natural ingredients. I’m hoping it is a decent replacement.
After reading this post, I am so excited to try Zevia. Soda is one thing I really miss although the few times I’ve had some since going primal I feel just awful. Maybe this is a way to reincorporate this treat!
I LOVE Zevia as a special treat. And I discovered recently that if you mix the orange or root beer with heavy cream you have yourself an amazing desert!
Stevia has a huge aftertaste to me..makes me super thirsty. read that the processing of the stevia is what is harmful(w/chemicals) but Truvia it said processes w/water..any way would like your take & anyone elses info on a product called WHEY LOW???
I have had disastrous stomach cramps and constipation with numerous stevia products, but particularly Truvia….I’m talking devastating pain! I’ve tried over and over with different brands, but keep getting the same result. This is fairly well-documented on the internet, but weirdly, it’s mostly women that seem to be affected. Such a shame. It seems like a great alternative with some decent health benefits. But for me, the pain is absolutely not worth it.
I also got crazy bloated from trying powder stevia recently. I thought it was something I ate, but once I went down the list and googled side effects (of which there are MANY forums for)…stevia was it. I’m going to try again just to make sure.
Many stevia products on the
market today are full of fillers
and other garbage.. One in particular
inulin which can cause bloating and a
host of other problems. Other fillers, starch, silica, or maltodextrin or aspartame also can cause issues Stevia, however sweet (2-300x sweeter than table sugar)
is actually not sugar at all but rather
a sweet herb. Quality stevia makes all the difference in the world. I use Emperor’s Herbologist JAJA Stevioside. It taste clean and has no fillers. Check out the website it is very informative and may help in your quest to discover better health and wellness good luck..
I too had horrendously painful stomach cramps/pain and diarrhea after eating stevia. It was such an awful experience I haven’t tried it again, but I just ate 2 stevia sweetened cookies a few minutes ago as an experiment. Want to make sure it was the stevia that made me so sick last time. Wish me luck. lol
I’ve read some studies about possible reproductive damage caused by large doses of stevia, though this has always been in processed form. We use stevia, if anything, but I grow the actual plant and powder it in the Vitamix. This way, I know there are no added ingredients.
I agree with the previous commenter though… it is horrible in baking!
I use Sweet Leaf in my coffee almost exclusively. I have tried both the Truvia and Pruvia brands as well. They take a little getting used too, but not too bad.
I like NuNaturals Vanilla stevia a lot and hate NOW brand – so you really do have to try a few. I use the NOW in my smoothies just to get rid of it.
What I’D really like to hear about is…yacon syrup! So much interesting research and very delicious. People on the candida diet can eat it.
Thanks Mark!
Hi Kelly,
Obviously it’s all subjective, but I LOATHE the NuNaturals vanilla! It’s about 30% ABV and the smell is very chemically.
The best – in my opinion – is Stevita (all flavours).
Another thing I noticed and kina why I switched to Sweet Leaf was that the Truvia packets list erythritol as an ingredient. Sweet Leaf lists “Stevia Leaf Extract, Inulin Soluble Vegetable Fiber”
Fantastic article on stevia. Love it! For all of you Primals…if you go to http://www.steviva.com/ and use the coupon code STEVIVA10 you will get 10% off stevia sweeteners plus free shipping.
I grew it in a pot on my deck last summer and when I made iced tea, I snipped off a branch of the stevia along with fresh mint to steep with the tea leaves. It added a sweetness, but nothing like the sweetness you achieve when you sprinkle the powdered form. I liked chewing on the leaves too, for a sweet treat. I had the feeling then that the leaves were the best way to go.
It’s great to use in cooking like a bay leaf too! Steeping it in a pan of thai eggplant instead of sugar is incredible.
It’s interesting how my pallet has changed. I used to gag when I would try Stevia. Now I grow it and use it every day. My 4,3,& 2 year old eat the leaves as if they are treats. They love it. I use stevia to bake and sweeten their foods.
I can also say that after using stevia as my natural sweetener I have cured my PCOS. It definitely works for me. I also enjoy another amazing sweetener called Lakanto. It’s even better to bake with.
Do you think growing it helps the taste, is fresh better? I kind of miss some sweet stuff, but stevia has, so far, completely grossed me out every time I tried it. I so want to like it….
Why bother? I haven’t found it necessary to add sweetener to anything since becoming Primal.
I grew a Stevia plant in my garden last year and it thrived until mid summer when it abruptly died (we live in Northern Canada). Crush a leaf or two in a glass with a few mint leaves, some lime juice and soda, and it’s the most refreshing summer drink I’ve found yet. We served it at our daughter’s birthday party instead of typical canned soda, and it disappeared quickly. Great stuff!
I have tried Stevia, I find the taste waaaay too sweet for me so I stick with honey or maple syrup in tiny amounts. I am more of a salt junky any way, although I noticed that since I stopped eating a high carb diet I don’t crave it as much.
Trader Joe’s has an organic Stevia extract powder in a little container. It’s good! Once you get used to the bitterness, you won’t even notice it. I use stevia in cooking/baking and will usually use a little honey along with it to cut the bitterness.
I’ve tried many brands of stevia and have found that they differ immensely from brand to brand.
I have not had a good tasting stevia that came in liquid form. However, the brand called Sweetleaf is the best tasting powdered among all the different types I’ve tasted.
I don’t use sweeteners very much other than plain yogurt and coffee, which is a natural sweetener to use because of the bitterness factor.
Dan Quinn Discovered this years ago. Blending stevia into water filers out all the harmful impurities into a natural gas, creating PureH20, Cold Fission. As far as health benefits, it has shown to have cured cancer in small animals and makes everyone fast and lean. snorting JaJa stevia can also create a similar feeling as snorting cocaine
It’s a great product
…and it turns lead into gold! Great stuff. Absolute magic, and makes flying monkeys from nothing but a little corn starch and sesame oil.
Does anyone know the manufacturing process of Stevia? How do they get a nice green plant into a powdery white substance? Do they bleach it or perform any other sort of unnatural act on it to get it that way?
Sugar beets are a whole different thing than the regular beets! Also, my concern with many stevia products is they contain other things like dextrose or erythitol to make it a powder and less concentrated.
Thanks Sunny, I was thinking there wasn’t a difference in beets since they pretty much look the same on the outside (we have many sugar beets in our state, you’d think I’d have known). Maybe I’ll try a couple of stevia plants so I can avoid the dextrose or other additives, or just stick to the all natural honey!
Thanks, Mark for another informative article. If you’re covering alternative sweeteners, I’d love to know your thoughts on coconut sugar. I just saw it in Whole Foods for the first time and understand that it has a low GI score?
I’ve tried this stuff and I just can’t get used to it. Really has an odd aftertaste.
I also do not like the aftertaste of it. I can sometimes drink a lemonade with a little drop of stevia, but I would rather have a smidge of raw honey in tea as well. I don’t like things very sweet, so I can deal with the carbs in 1/4 tsp of honey. I did use stevia to get my boys off diluted juice. My older son would go all day without drinking any water until I started adding a small amount of juice to it. But fructose really bloats him up, so I needed something that would not bloat him, and stevia worked for that. I have just gotten the boys just back on plain water though. That is the best thing for them.
I’ve used Stevia (truvia) to make fresh lemonade and I think it tastes good enough to get that sweet taste for a drink. I have sinced drop the daily use of it, but for a weekend drink I might make some lemonade.
I have a Stevia patch growing in my herb garden and I use it as an herb in cooking and teas. I tend not to use extracts since often the benefit of a medicinal herb comes from the interplay of many different parts of the plant, extracting a specific portion of the plant can lead to an imbalance.
Did you not comprehend the article? It doesn’t that’s the whole point! It causes no insulin spike therefore your body doesn’t recognise it.
If it did, I’d be about 22 stone again by now!
We comprehend the article differently. I understand that the extracts appear to cause no insulin spike, therefore my body does not react to it in the same way it reacts to sugar. I’m still not certain in what other ways my body might react to the isolated ingredient as opposed to the whole plant. It doesn’t matter, I pretty much dislike sugar in most of it’s forms anyway. Eliminating sweets has had the result of making a much wider portion of the food spectrum tasting sweeter to me. Cheers! And congrats on leaving 22 stone behind!
You a Brit/Aussie/Kiwi/Canuck, mate? Yanks don’t know what stones are!
22 Stone = ~= 305 North American lb’s. I do metric by preference. Southern Oregonian by birth, but ten years living in Norway and traveling Europe has twisted my Yank a bit. The little plot of land I live on now is right at the intersection of four ecological zones, so we can grow a lot of diverse crops. Most of my food comes right out of the ground and is harvested minutes before it hits the table. Got buffalo here too. They still won’t let me hunt it with a spear though.
Stevia is a beautiful little plant that can take over if it finds a comfy spot. I do drink coffee, and tea, but I don’t dilute the coffee flavor or the tea flavor with other herbs as a general rule. I just find a flavor of coffee I like that tastes good black, so there is no need of sweetener. Cold water extract instead of hot brewing makes a coffee that usually needs no masking herbal flavor. I find Stevia a nice leafy addition to some salads and occasionally in a cold tea. It tastes best as a fresh leaf in my opinion, and uncooked. I don’t believe I would find a use for the extracted sweetener.
I have PCOS, so am predisposed to be insulin insensitive. The problem is, I live in the UK, so have to import my stevia from the US because our moronic government – or rather the EU (it’s a Brussels thing) refuses to license it for commercial use or sale in liquid, tablet or granulated form.
Yet they’ve licensed: –
Sorbitol (E420)
Mannitol (E421)
Isomalt (E953)
Neotame (E961 – never heard of it)
Maltitol (E965)
Lactitol (E966)
Xylitol (E967)
Erythritol (E968)
Acesulfame K (E950)
Aspartame (E951)
Cyclamic acid and its Na and Ca salts (E952)
Saccharin and its Na, K and Ca salts (E954)
Sucralose (E955)
Thaumatin (E957 – never heard of this either!)
Neohesperidine DC (E959 – this is a new one on me, too!)
They’re all banned from baby products (though sugar is not) but they are NOT banned from squashes, cordials and other soft drinks (the ‘sugar free’ versions are usually sweetened with E951 and/or E950 or, occasionally E955 and/or E950.
I believe that it’s licensed for herbal/medicinal use, but NOT as a commercial sweetener (though don’t quote me on that…)
In fact, by purchasing it from iHerb, and importing it into the UK (even though it’s for my own personal use, not for resale) I am breaking the law, as it is ILLEGAL (or was back in 2009) so I’m leaving myself open to prosecution and a fine of up to £5,000.
Yet we know that E951 and E954 are potentially carcinogenic!
Ridiculous isn’t it…?!
I LOVE flavoured Stevita because I believe it has the truest flavour (don’t like SweetLeaf, NOW, or NuNaturals – the latter just tastes too artificial and is very high in alcohol. NOW is just too thick and syrupy).
Thing is Stevita seem to be discontinuing all their liquid stevia and just continuing with the powdered form (or iHerb just isn’t carrying them anymore – and I don’t know where else to buy them). Had an email the other day that they were no longer carrying orange or strawberry.
Wish someone would do a raspberry (Sweetleaf berry is the nearest – and it’s gross! So’s the chocolate raspberry).
Thanks Mark, awesome post
I use a powder that states to have 100% pure certified organic steviol glycosides. I have a small amount in my organic plunger coffee each morning, in the occasional organic raw cocoa, and a small amount in my whey protein isolate shake about twice a week. I never use it in baking or cooking. I also use the dried leaves if I drink a herbal tea. I just add a few dried stevia leaves to the herbal tea and let them brew.
I use Stevia in my tea daily. Hot and cold. I found that adding lemon to cold tea with Stevia eliminates the bitterness. I don’t like coffee, but my sister says she can’t get used to it in coffee, even though she does like it in iced tea.
We canned jelly this year using it too. Our experience was that using just a little bit of honey sort of “turned” the Stevia taste from bitter to sweet. So if nothing else, it dramatically cuts the amount of honey needed. I have found this same thing when sweetening other things. (Chocomole, for instance, which is a current favorite!)
Apparently everyone has different tastes for what tastes the best, because favorites mentioned by others are NOT my favorites. I have not found a single powdered one that I do like. I keep the Now brand in my purse because it doesn’t go bad as fast. Other brands tend to get more bitter as I get to the bottom of the bottle.
I have read articles claiming it is good for cavity prevention. Since began using it a year and a half ago, no one in the family has gotten anymore cavities. However, we stopped eating grain at the same time that we started using Stevia, so it could be either – or maybe both?
Lastly, I had a major candida overgrown to the point of total system shutdown which prompted my change to a primal lifestyle. Even fruit was off the menu for a while. Stevia was the only way to get a sweet fix. A “sweet” tea satisfied me – it didn’t increase my need for sweet. Actually, it was quite the opposite. This article helped make sense of why that might be.
I would love to grow some, but I hear it’s hard to start from a seed. Can anyone share their experience? I haven’t found any started plants in my area.
By the way, I think I read that Truvia is owned by Coke. That makes me wary.
Nicole, not that it really matters, but the table top version of Truvia is not owned by Coke, but by Cargill (an agro-giant company). It was however developed through a JV of the two companies. Coke has the beverage rights.