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News About Stevia, a Herbal Sweetener
November 4, 2008
Stevia is a plant in the chrysamthemum family with very sweet leaves that are harvested and sold in a powder, liquid or dried leaf form. It's popular in Japan and other Asian countries where it's been used without incident for many years. The problem is that the FDA has not approved the use of stevia as a "food additive." Because of this, food manufacturers can't use stevia as an ingredient in their recipes. However, in 1994 the FDA approved stevia as a "food supplement," which means that consumers can buy it as a table-top sweetener and use it independently. This is why you can buy stevia in health food stores or in the health-food section of your grocery store.
The results of research studies on stevia are controversal and vary depending on who you talk to. Some experts say that stevia may cause cancer in animals. While others say this is sloppy science. politically motivated by food manufacturers to keep stevia out of the market place.
For example, Professor Jan Geuns, a Belgian biologist who specializes in the study of stevia, says that stevia is a health promoting substance that can lower blood pressure and type 2 diabetes. In fact, he says "it's a crime against humanity," that stevia is not made more available. Natural health food experts like Dr. Andrew Weil say that stevia is a much more healthy choice than either sugar or artificial sweeteners. And James May, the author of The Miracle of Stevia, says "Every doctor should be recommending stevia." James Turner, a consumer rights lawyer, says "It's a completely absurd and confusing situation for consumers."
All this may be about to change now that two big guys, Cargill and Coke, teamed up to get into the stevia business. Earlier this year they introduced a new table-top stevia product called Truvia, which is made from erythritol (a sugar alcohol) and rebiana, which is their proprietary name for the extract they derived from stevia. (In fact, the controversial word "stevia" does NOT appear on the Truvia ingredients list.) Cargill and Coke started the FDA application process to get approval to use stevia as a food additive; but this may take 6 months or more. Once the approval is received, it's estimated that products made with stevia are likely to take over 20 percent of the non-sugar sweetener market.
Extracting sweetness from stevia plants isn't a simple process. This is because stevia leaves contain both a licorice/bitter taste and a sweet taste (rebaudioside and stevioside), and it's hard to get one taste without the other. Cargill and Coke claim to have the science that does the trick of isolating the sweetest taste. I have tasted it myself, and it's pretty good. As you'll see below, Truvia is one of three stevia products that I reoommend.
STEVIA TASTE TEST
Five stevia prducts were sampled and judged based on two criteria: bitterness and sweeteness. It should be noted that none of the products are as sweet as table sugar. Two of the stevia products are not recommended because the bitterness was too strong and unpleasant.
NOT RECOMMENDED
Superior Source Stevia:
Very bitter, neutral sweetness
Stevita Supreme Stevia:
Very bitter, sweet
RECOMMENDED
Truvia
No bitterness; moderately sweet (5-6 on a scale of 10)
Nu Naturals Nu-Stevia
No bitterness; sweet (5-6 on a scale of 10)
Sweet Leaf Stevia:
No bitterness; moderately sweet (4-5 on a scale of 10)
Cooking Considerations:
Stevia products are heat stable so you can cook and bake with them. However, keep in mind they don't measure equally to sugar. Also, there's no standard sweetness convention among stevia manufacturers -- so the amount you need will vary from product to product. One recommendation that's floating around is to use one teaspoon of stevia as the equivalent of one cup of sugar, but I don't trust it. You will just have to experiment based on your preferred brand.
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How to pick a healthy, sugar-free bread
July 28, 2008
When you're looking for store-bought breads, you need to focus on two important selection criteria: 1) whether or not the bread is made with whole, unrefined grains and 2) whether or not caloric sweeterners are a dominant ingredient in the bread. Whole grain relatively sugar-free breads are hard to find, but not impossible. Most store-bought breads have one or the other feature, but not both together. This is what makes shopping a little tricky. The reason you want to avoid refined breads made with a high caloric sweetener content is because this type of food is digested very quickly and produces a spike in your blood sugar. A sugar spike results in a big insulin response, which then moves all the excess sugar out of your blood and into fat cell storage. Excess insulin in your blood stream is a very unhealthy condition, and it also makes it very hard to lose weight and much more likely that you'll gain it.
Whole grains are highly desirable because it means that the bread product has gone through the least refining possible and still has a high fiber content. Fiber is linked to a host of health benefits including less risk of obesity, heart disease, or diabetes -- to name a few. Less refining is a good thing because it means your body has to work a little harder to digest the food. So you not only expend more calories metabolizing the bread, you also pre-empt the whole sugar spike/big insulin response scene. This is why white flour, which is completely refined and converts very quickly to sugar in your blood, should be avoided. To tell you the truth, I don't even buy dog food that has fiberless flour in it. I want my dogs to be healthy, thin and to live a long time!
So to make an intelligent bread decision you need to be able to identify if it's made with highly processed flour. Of course, the food manufacturer does not use a term like highly processed flour. Instead, they use terms like "enriched wheat flour," or "unbleached wheat flour," or simply "wheat flour." These terms sound like you're getting something great when you're not. It's the same old, same old highly processed flour that you need to avoid. Another clue is that most white bread has a fiber content of a mere 1 gram for every two slices.
Compare this to 100% stone ground flour, which has a very high fiber content. At the very least, you want to purchase bread off the shelf that has 3 grams of fiber per serving and preferably more. Most of the naturally-occuring nutrients are still attached, and therefore an enrichment process is not necessary. Although, sometimes food manufacturers add the vitamins and minerals anyway because they think we expect it. They're also wising up to the fact that consumers want fiber, and so sometimes they put added fiber filler into the bread recipe to pump up the fiber count. This is why you always need to look for words like whole grains and stone ground on the label.
As for caloric sweeteners, you need to apply the "rule of four," which means that the caloric sweetener must be fourth on the ingredients list or lower. Caloric sweeteners include sugar (even if it's organic or raw), high fructose corn syrup, molasses, cane juice or honey. The fourth position on the ingredients list indicates that there's not enough sweetener in the bread to worry about. You will not find any breads that have NO caloric sweeteners, but you can find breads where the sweetener is the lower on the list. Remember, only count foods as ingredients. Water is not a food, and vitamins, minerals or chemical substancesare not foods either.
Here are 7 wonderful recommendations for bread products that are easily available in my local stores in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire. This is not a complete list of all the good bread choices in the bread universe, it simply represents the choices in my part of the world:
Ezekiel 4:9 Sesame 100% flourless sprouted grain bread
Ezekial 4:9 Low Sodium 100% flourless sprouted grain bread
Ezekial 4:9 100% flourless sprouted grain tortillas
Pepperidge Farm 100% Natural German Dark Wheat Whole Grain Bread
Pepperidge Farm 7 Grain Carb Style Bread
Pepperidge Farm Soft 100% Whole Wheat Bread
Thomas' Hearty Grains 100% Whole Wheat Muffins
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Review of Yogurts - My Selection Critera
July 14, 2008
It's really confusing selecting yogurts. There are so many different brands and so many different varieties within those brands. Even more -- you can't trust a food manufacturer to be consistent in the use of caloric sweeteners from one variety of yogurt to another. Sometimes they use them, most especially in fruit yogurts, and sometimes they don't.
Here's a brief review of the yogurts that are available in my local grocery store. Of course, this is not a complete list of all the yogurts in the yogurt universe. But it will give you a reasonable idea of how I go about the yogurt selection process. Forget that you see Jamie Lee Curtis sitting on a green couch saying how healthy a particular yogurt is. Everyone has a different definition of what constitutes a healthy food. So you have to figure out if it's a healthy food for YOU! When you're selecting a processed food, healthiness is always determined by whether or not that food is going to increase your blood sugar. And this is primarily determined by the presence or absence of caloric sweeteners.
The one and only place to determine whether or not a caloric sweetener has been ADDED to the product by the food manufacturer is on the ingredients list. The yogurts that I suggest avoiding all have sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and/or modified corn starch in the first three ingredients. However, that said, healthy choices for YOU do exist. You just have to look for them and be a little picky.
OKAY Yogurts:
Stonyfield Lowfat Plain Organic Yogurt
Stonyfield Whole Milk Plain Organic Yogurt
Dannon All Natural Non-Fat Plain Yogurt
Dannon Light & Fit, Carb & Sugar Control Yogurt
Cabot Greek Style Plain Yogurt
FAGE Total 0 Plain Greek Strained Yogurt
AVOID THESE YOGURTS
Yoplait yogurts
Columbo yogurts
Dannon Activia varieties
Dannon Light & Fit
Stonyfield Low-Fat fruit varieties
Stonyfield Fat-free French Vanilla
Stonyfield O'Soy
Cabot Non-fat Plain Yogurt
Chobain Greek Yogurt
LaYogurt
Silk Live
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Summer Yogurt Cheese Parfait
July 7, 2008
My latest and greatest favorite thing to eat is "yogurt cheese." It's so easy to make. Just put a strainer over a bowl. Pour the entire container of yogurt into the strainer. Wash and save the container because you'll re-use it later. (I like to buy yogurt in a 2-pound size because it's cheaper than buying single-serving containers.) Then cover the yogurt with a piece of plastic wrap and put the whole thing -- the yogurt, strainer and bowl in the fridge for a few hours. Once all the excess water drains out -- voila, you've got yogurt cheese. Transfer the yogurt cheese to back into the washed container and store in the fridge until you're ready to use it. By the way, Cabot makes a really delicious brand of Greek Style plain yogurt that makes a thick and creamy cheese.
Here's a simple recipe for turning your yogurt cheese into parfait -- perfect for a late afternoon summer snack or edessert.
Measure out 2 ounces of fresh strawberries and 2 ounces of fresh blueberries. Wash and drain the fruit and slice the strawberries. Mix berries together in a small bowl and set aside. Measure 1/4 cup of yogurt cheese and put it in another small bowl. Put 1/2 of the fruit on top of the cheese. Sprinkle with a pinch of cinnamon. Repeat with the remaining 1/4 cup of yogurt cheese, fruit and another pinch of cinnamon on top. Oh, it is yum, yum, yum. It will be your new favorite thing, too.
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Karen Bentley hosts the MY THIN LIFESTYLE radio show
June 30, 2008
If you're interested in checking out my new weekly national radio show, go to www.webtalkradio.net and search on me, Karen Bentley, or My Thin Lifestyle. My Thin Lifestyle is dedicated to providing listeners with leading edge information and inspiration to get thin and stay that way. I Guests include well-known experts, academicians, scientists, bestselling cookbook authors, TV show stars, hypnotists, medical doctors, and others, as well as real-life people who've lost a large amount of weight and kept it off. Even though my personal preference is a sugar-free diet, I welcome guests who represent and discuss a wide range of different weight loss choices. The basic idea is that there are many ways to get thin and stay that way, and your job is to find the one that works for you. One of the parts that I enjoy most about hosting this show is the opportunity to share a Spiritual Solution every week with my listeners. For example, this week's Spirtual Solution is focused on resolving the problem of emotional eating.
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Agave as an alternative
March 25, 2008
I just got a question about substituting agave syrup (also called agave nectar) for sugar. Since I am not familiar with agave, I had to do a little research on it. This is what I found out.
Agave is a warm-weather plant grown mostly in Mexico and South America. It looks like an aloe plant or a cactus, but it isn't. Rather, agave is in the same family as lillies and amaryllis. It's not clear to me whether the agave syrup comes from the stalks, the leaves, the flower or the sap of the plant, as all these parts are naturally sweet and edible. In any case, one tablespoon of agave syrup contains 60 calories. Compare this to table sugar which contains 48 calories per tablespoon. However, agave syrup is 90% fructose and 10% sugar. So unlike sugar it metabolizes directly in the liver rather than through cells. Therefore, agave probably doesn't stimulate an insulin response. Raw food expert John Kohler at www.living-foods.com says that the unusually high concentration of fructose is the equivalent of consuming high fructose corn syrup, which is about 80% fructose. And he reminds the reader that regular consumption of high concentrations of fructose is very hard on the liver "and actually promotes disease more readily than glucose." As for the glycemix index, sugar has an index of 100 and agave syrup has an index of 46. The most common complaint about agave syrup is the cost. One gallon is about $65.
I would be very interested in hearing from anyone who knows more about agave and/or who actually uses an agave product.
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Marlene's Sugar-Free Applesauce
March 19, 2008
The marvelous Marlene invited me over to her house for lunch last week and served the most delicious, easy-to-make Sugar-Free applesauce on the planet. Here's her recipe: 6 cooking applies, peeled, quarted, core and seeds removed. (Marlene uses any kind of apple except Delicious.) Put the apples in a medium-sized pot. Add 1/2 cup of water. Cover and cook over medium-low heat for 20 minutes or until apples are mushy. Remove from heat. Put in a covered container and refrigerate. It will keep well in the refigerator for several days. Marlene served the applesauce cold with a dollop of freshly whipped cream that had been flavored with some vanilla. Oh, it was yummy. The applesauce recipe might also work well with a teaspoon of cinammon added to it.
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Eating in Transit During Long Distance Travel
March 3, 2008
Long distance travel that involves a major time zone change poses a special eating challenge. The trick, as always, is to prevent hunger and to get yourself into your new time zone eating pattern as quickly as possible. This may mean that on transit days you eat more food volume than your budget allows. If, for example, you're going east to west, you might end up having four meals in a 24 hour period rather than the typical three meals. Or you might require an additional snack or two to keep yourself from getting hungry until the next meal period. You will most likely have more protein, fruit or veggies than usual. Do not worry about the extra food volume you're eating on these transit days, but DO stick to your sugar-free intention and continue to select food types that are recommended on the eating plan. All large airports have restaurants, food courts and snack stores that offer protein, veggie and fruit choices that will work for you. Consider bringing some packaged nuts (several 2-oz packets) or tuck a couple of your favorite whole grain food bars into your purse.
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