What is Truvia?

by Melissa Goldberg

Sunday, 18 May 2008

Today our food is over-processed and contains artificial ingredients and sweeteners. Reading the ingredients labels on most foods in the supermarkets makes me feel illiterate, Dimonowhat? Polyglycolichuh? Years ago everything contained sugar. Then saccharin (Sweet'N Low) came into vogue as a "dietetic" alternative to plain cane or beet sugar--remember TaB? Then, when that was found to cause cancer the big switch was to aspartame, (NutraSweet or Equal). In 1999 sucralose was introduced to the market and the Splenda symbol appeared on every processed, low calorie food on the market--my husband, until recently used Splenda in his coffee everyday. So when I heard that Cargill, the company that in March, CondeNast Portfolio listed as one of "The Toxic Ten" (one of the worst corporate polluters in America) and Coca Cola, who has basically put America on an intravenous (IV) line of high fructose corn syrup, were coming out with a new sweetener, you can bet I was a little skeptical. Like we need another zero-calorie, chemical, no-value sweetener on the market. Well, this new sweetener is called Truvia. Truvia is made of rebiana, a sweetener derived from the leaves of stevia plant. Native to South and Central America, stevia is grown for its sweet leaves. The stevia extract turns out to be more than 300 times sweeter than sugar. Stevia leaves are harvested and dried, and are steeped in fresh water in a process similar to that of making tea. According to Cargill and Coke, Truvia is a natural sweetener. However, what the companies fail to explain is how the steeped leaves then get to the consumer in a bag looking like a table sweetener. It must be processed in some way, no? So I am not sure how natural Truvia really is. Cargill and Coke are currently waiting FDA approval to sell stevia as a sweetener. It is currently only allowed to be used as a supplement in the U.S. -- supplements are not regulated by the FDA, and as such are not widely accepted by the public. Stevia has been used in Japan for over 100 years. Wanting to know more about Truvia, I jumped on the opportunity to listened in on a "webinar," (web conference call), with Coke and Cargill last week. The call included Leslie Curry, Regulatory and Scientific Affairs Director for Cargill Food and Ingredient Systems, Zanna McFerson, Business Director for Cargill Health & Nutrition and Dr. Rhona Applebaum, Vice President & Chief Scientific and Regulatory Officer for The Coca-Cola Company. These were basically hired cheerleaders for Truvia. What did I learn from more than 30 minutes listening in? Almost nothing. Coke and Cargill have done safety studies on the use of rebiana. The companies say that it is safe to eat. I'm dubious. I do not think that any of these tests look at the actual amounts consumers consume. Coke and Cargill have big commercial hopes for Truvia beyond just liquid crack, I mean Coke. Think ice cream, yogurt, cookies, and more -- all hitting our sweet tooth cravings. If these wonderful companies have their way, many Americans will be taking in stevia or Truvia in nearly every meal and snack they eat. That impact of that amount of Truvia on the body can not really be determine without many years of studies. To find out more about stevia, I did some digging on the internet. I was curious as to why stevia was banned in the U.S and Europe as a sweetener but Japan has used it for decades. From my research, it appears that stevia is actually a better substitute from the chemical processed sweetners (asparatame and sucralose) on the market today. More importantly, what I discovered about the politics behind this sugar-substitute was very interesting. In the 1980's numerous companies in the U.S were interested in using stevia in their products. In 1991, the FDA banned the importation of stevia for use in foods. According to numerous papers that I read, this was at the request of NutraSweet (owned by evil Monsanto who brought us Agent Orange, PCBs, genetically engineered seeds, sacchrin, aspartame, nuclear weapons, and human growth hormones in milk cattle). The power of Monsanto kept stevia out of the country banning it for almost 20 years. By the way, the FDA ignored published studies on the dangers of aspartame prior to its approval by the agency. God bless the United States of Corporate America! Now I do not trust any of these companies, Monsanto, Cargill or Coke, but from what I have read and heard, Truvia may not be all bad. Cargill and Coke are ramping up farming and production of stevia in South America and China. If Truvia is truly a natural zero calorie sweetener then it could become huge. We could see fields of stevia all over the world. This could be good and bad. It would bring money to some communities that need it, and it could also wreak environmental havoc due to poor farming practices. According to the Truvia website, the plant will not be grown organically. As stated, "While rebiana is natural and comes from a plant, it is not certified or grown organically at this time. That could happen in the future, depending on consumer demand." The idea is to have an "all-natural" zero-cal sweetener, and they are not growing it organically? I don't get it. Why not do it right from the beginning? These are two companies that generate billions of dollars of year, and will probably have the exclusive rights to use this "wonder sweetener" and are not going to grow it organically? Crazy. Beyond that, this whole thing gets me wondering. If stevia was blocked from our consumption by Monsanto nearly 20 years ago, and its better for us than chemicals like aspartame and saccharine, then what else has have we been denied for the almighty dollar?