Natural and Sugar-Free Sweeteners and Beverages

This week, I promised to speak about naturally safe sweeteners and soft drinks. Often I explain to people how natural products are healthier than artificial and chemically produced ingredients. Once in a while, I get a “skeptic” who claims that if natural is always healthier, what about poison ivy, which is a natural herb, or mercury, a poisonous natural mineral.

For this reason, I should clarify what I mean by natural. I’m speaking of items that have been consumed as food for thousands of years – they are almost always healthier than any man-made chemical.

Today, I will speak of two items, both of which have been in the human food supply for thousands of years: stevia and erythritol.

Stevia: Stevia’s full name is stevia rebaundiana, and it is also called sweet leaf. It is an herb known for its sweet properties, with its extract form being up to 300 times as sweet as sugar. Therefore, only a tiny amount is needed in order to sweeten the same amount as sugar. This being said, many manufacturers dilute the stevia extract with a variety of other substances (mostly fillers that are neutral to your health), so the amount needed in that case would probably be closer to sugar. Rather than taxing the body’s insulin production system, which excess sugar does, stevia actually helps increase glucose tolerance and lowers fasting glucose, meaning it guards against diabetes (1). In mice studies, stevia was also shown to lower total cholesterol and triglycerides (2), (although mice studies don’t always translate to humans).

Stevia is usually available in powder or liquid form. I personally find the powder to taste far better and closer to sugar. Some people complain that stevia has a bitter aftertaste. This doesn’t bother me too much, but mixing stevia with erythritol in a ¼ stevia to ¾ erythritol ratio seems to nearly eliminate any bad taste and leaves only the sweetness.

Erythritol: Erythritol is a sugar alcohol, and it is in the same family as xylitol, mallitol, and sorbitol. Many sugar alcohols are known to have mild gastrointestinal side effects depending on the quantity consumed, but erythritol is free of these effects, even at larger quantities. Erythritol has been part of the human diet for thousands of years, as it is naturally found in grapes, melons, pears, and mushrooms. Similar to stevia, erythritol is essentially calorie-free and does not tax the insulin production system (3).  Erythritol also has the added benefit that it is protective of teeth against cavities (which is the opposite of sugar), although not quite to the same extent as xylitol (4).

Erythritol is also available in powder form. It tastes similar to standard sugar, although it has a slight minty flavor as well. When using it in the one-quarter to three-quarters ratio as described above, this minty flavor disappears along with stevia’s bitter aftertaste.

A few options for using stevia and erythritol include sweetening your own drinks, including (unsweetened) tea and coffee, sweetening flavored carbonated water, and consuming Zevia brand soda or Vitamin Water Zero, each of which are only sweetened using stevia and erythritol.  Zevia is available at many health food stores, Whole Foods, and now even some of the major supermarkets. Vitamin Water Zero is available nearly everywhere. Also, you can use the ¾ erythritol to ¼ stevia ratio in place of the same amount of sugar in full recipes (1 cup of sugar, for example, would change to ¾ cup erythritol and ¼ cup stevia). 

1. Curi R, Alvarez M, Bazotte RB, Botion LM, Godoy JL, Bracht A. Effect of Stevia rebaudiana on glucose tolerance in normal adult humans. Braz J Med Biol Res. 1986;19(6):771-4.
2. Park JE, Cha YS. Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni extract supplementation improves lipid and carnitine profiles in C57BL/6J mice fed a high-fat diet. J Sci Food Agric. 2010;90(7):1099-105.
3. Ishikawa M, Miyashita M, Kawashima Y, Nakamura T, Saitou N, Modderman J. Effects of oral administration of erythritol on patients with diabetes. Regul Toxicol Pharmacol. 1996;24(2 Pt 2):S303-8.
4. Mäkinen KK, Saag M, Isotupa KP, et al. Similarity of the effects of erythritol and xylitol on some risk factors of dental caries. Caries Res. 2005;39(3):207-15.

David Rodgers, L.N., M.S. is a Licensed Nutritionist practicing in Berkley at the Nutrient Balance Center. He specializes in helping people with Chronic Lyme Disease, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, weight loss, heart disease, diabetes, digestive conditions, lupus, MS, and more by using dietary changes, targeted natural supplements, detoxification, and lifestyle modification. For more information, as well as free training video seminars, see www.nutrientbalance.com.