It has taken food manufacturers a couple of years to work out the right formulations, but stevia is now present in a number of foods and beverages in the U.S., including Gatorade’s G2, VitaminWater Zero, SoBe Lifewater Zero, Crystal Light and Sprite Green. In December 2008, the FDA accepted this argument, declared stevia GRAS, and allowed its use in mainstream U.S. If designated as GRAS, stevia could be used as a sweetener in a wide variety of food products and beverages. They are exempt from the rigorous approval process required for food additives. Substances that are considered GRAS have been determined to be safe through expert consensus, scientific review or widespread use without negative complications. Several companies argued to the FDA that stevia should be categorized similarly to its artificial-sweetener cousins as “Generally Recognized as Safe” (GRAS). A follow-up study refuted the initial study and in 1995, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allowed stevia to be imported and sold as a food supplement, but not as a sweetener. due to early studies that suggested the sweetener may cause cancer. Though widely available throughout the world, in 1991 stevia was banned in the U.S. Paraguayans have used stevia as a food sweetener for centuries while other countries, including Brazil, Korea, Japan, China and much of South America, have a shorter, though still long-standing, record of stevia use. Grown naturally in tropical climates, stevia is an herb in the chrysanthemum family that grows wild as a small shrub in Paraguay and Brazil, though it can easily be cultivated elsewhere. Stevia’s history goes back to ancient times. Thirty times sweeter than sugar and with no effect on blood sugar and little aftertaste, stevia sales are predicted to reach about $700 million in the next few years, according to the agribusiness finance giant Rabobank. Once limited to the health-food market as an unapproved herb, the plant-derived sweetener known as stevia is now widely available and rapidly replacing artificial sweeteners in consumer products. By NATALIE DIGATE MUTH, M.D., M.P.H., R.D.Īmericans now can get their calorie-free sugar fix from an all-natural alternative to artificial sweeteners.
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