About Stevia

What exactly is Stevia?

Stevia is a sweetener and sugar substitute extracted from the leaves of the plant species Stevia rebaudiana.

Stevia is natural, unlike other sugar substitutes. It’s made from a leaf related to popular garden flowers like asters and chrysanthemums. In South America and Asia, people have been using stevia leaves to sweeten drinks like tea for many years. Stevia is perhaps unique among food ingredients because it’s most valued for what it doesn’t do. It doesn’t add calories.

About Stevia Discovery

The plant Stevia rebaudiana has been used for more than 1,500 years by the Guaraní peoples of South America, who called it ka’a he’ê (“sweet herb”). The leaves have been used traditionally for hundreds of years in both Brazil and Paraguay to sweeten local teas and medicines, and as a “sweet treat”. The genus was named for Spanish botanist and physician Petrus Jacobus Stevus (Pedro Jaime Esteve 1500–1556) a professor of botany at the University of Valencia.

In 1899, Swiss botanist Moisés Santiago Bertoni, while conducting research in eastern Paraguay, first described the plant and the sweet taste in detail.Only limited research was conducted on the topic until in 1931 two French chemists isolated the glycosides that give stevia its sweet taste. The exact structure of the aglycone (steviol) and of the glycoside were published in 1955.

The stevia plant is part of the Asteraceae family, related to the daisy and ragweed. Several stevia species called “candyleaf” are native to New Mexico, Arizona and Texas. But the prized species, Stevia rebaudiana (Bertoni), grows in Paraguay and Brazil, where people have used leaves from the stevia bush to sweeten food for hundreds of years.

How is Stevia metabolized in the human body?

The sweetness in the stevia leaves comes from Steviol Glycosides.

Glycosides are molecules that contain glucose and other non-sugar substances called aglycones (molecules with other sugars are polysaccharides). The tongue’s taste receptors react to the glucose in the glycosides: those with more glucose (rebaudioside) taste sweeter than those with less (stevioside). Some of the tongue’s bitter receptors react to the aglycones.

In the digestive tract, rebaudiosides are metabolised into stevioside. Then stevioside is broken down into glucose and steviol. The glucose released in this process is used by bacteria in the colon and not absorbed into the bloodstream.[27] Steviol cannot be further digested and is excreted.

In short; – Stevia is a Zero Calories and has no Carbohydrates. – Stevia is a Natural sweetener that lacks any chemical components. – Stevia is known to cure varied ailments. – Stevia is a completely natural herbal sweetener. – Stevia is a great alternative for sugar and safe for diabetics and the health conscious.