Is Stevia Safe?
Now that the dangers of excess sugar are well known1, new developments have uncovered some natural sugar substitutes. One of the most common of which is known as stevia. The stevia leaf is an herb originally from South America, but can now be found all over the world. The herb is naturally sweet, about 200 times sweeter than table sugar. It does not raise blood sugar levels2 as sugar and some other artificial sweeteners do. But is stevia safe to eat?
Health benefits of Stevia in its Natural Form
Some cultures have used Stevia as medication for centuries to treat various types of diseases. Now, the herb can be applied to provide these healing properties3 on a wider scale. It has antioxidant properties4 and can reduce the risk of tooth decay5 when used instead of sugar. Eating stevia occasionally is known to reduce cases of high blood pressure6 and mild hypertension.
Furthermore, it’s known that cancer cells thrive off of sugar7. Reducing the amount of sugar we eat can help ensure cancer cells don’t have much to feed off of! Stevia is being studied to ensure it can deliver these benefits without any serious side effects.
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Since it is a natural sweetener, you do not have to worry about added chemicals or any harmful processing. Stevia leaves are ground up into a powder and what you end up with is stevia extract. To make sure you’re consuming the most natural form of this sweetener without fillers or chemicals, try buying it in liquid form. Some brands of powdered stevia can bleach their product8, while liquid forms don’t.
Risks Associated with Stevia
According to some studies, taking extremely high amounts of stevia can result in hormonal imbalances9 in mice. Otherwise, in normal doses, stevia has not been found harmful10 to human health.
Want to Try it Out? Here’s some inspiration!
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The content on this website should not be taken as medical advice and you should ALWAYS consult with your doctor before starting any diet or exercise program. We provide nutritional data for our recipes as a courtesy to our readers. We use Total Keto Diet app software to calculate the nutrition and we remove fiber and sugar alcohols, like erythritol, from the total carbohydrate count to get to the net carb count, as they do not affect your blood glucose levels. You should independently calculate nutritional information on your own and not rely on our data. The website or content herein is not intended to cure, prevent, diagnose or treat any disease. This website shall not be liable for adverse reactions or any other outcome resulting from the use of recipes or recommendations on the Website or actions you take as a result. Any action you take is strictly at your own risk.
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how many drops of stevia can i have in a day ? i enjoy tea and coffe with cream and stevia — is 4 mugs too much about 20 drops 4 tblspoons cream
We usually use 5 drops in each drink we want sweetened. However, we only drink a sweetened drink about once a day, some days none! The less the better only to stop the dependence on everything being sweetened.