Dried Bunches of Herbs and Stevia

In my dream kitchen, there are big wooden rafters with wonderful things hanging down: onions, garlic, dried bunches of herbs and bundles of lavender. Perhaps enchanting memories of the attic in the Little House books still  influence me. I doubt I'll ever live in such a  kitchen but yesterday in the chill that has become October I cut all the remaining herbs and in a moment of genius thought of a way to hang them near the ceiling.

I wish this photo was better. I wish I had taken down the drying Ziplocs I plan to reuse and the random things sitting on the ledge, but when the kitchen is small you use all the space. Weeks ago, my camera got lost in the crack between the car trunk and the car and BAM! Occasionally it will still take a picture, like this one. The display screen is dead so when it beeps at me, I can't figure out why. And my computer is on the fritz. I've been researching the best way to carry your tap water, but my computer! It will visit two websites and then on the third, will freeze up or declare the site unavailable after five minutes of thinking. I've tried different browsers, etc. but such conditions make for slow research. Forgive my absence. I hope you've missed me.

I do have bundles of herbs drying in my kitchen: mint, rosemary, sage, alas we used all the parsley up, and stevia. They have been washed and bundled and hang, with clothespins over a curtain rod that has been curtain-less for more than two years. I knew there was a reason to leave it up. The smells in my kitchen are less potent than I'd dreamed but I am happy.

So I write today about what I know. An end, until new research emerges, to the topic of sugar and its replacements. Today's focus: stevia. My favorite. The only one still untainted by bad news. Stevia is an herb. It is native in parts of Central and South America. Depending on when it is harvested, it is 150-400 times sweeter than sugar. It adds no calories. It is natural. It is safe for diabetics and in studies on rats has actually been shown to improve insulin sensitivity. Other potential health benefits (not enough research to guarantee these benefits but it looks promising) include preventing teeth decay, as an anti fungal, lowering high blood pressure and even decreasing the desire for sweets.

Stevia comes in  liquid and a powder form. You can even get flavored liquids like orange, chocolate or root beer stevia extracts. You can't take Stevia powder and just use it in equal amounts to replace sugar. Stevia is much sweeter so 1 cup of sugar can be replaced by 1/2 tsp of stevia powder. So a recipe will need more bulk. Also, stevia doesn't function like sugar: it won't aid in browning or softening a cake, assist in fermentation of yeast, or caramelize. Unless you love to experiment in the kitchen, I would start using stevia in recipes that already call for the sweetener (www.stevia.com, maintained by Sweet Leaf, a company that sells stevia products, is the easiest to use with the best variety. I like the Stevia shop site too. ).

Here's three great sites explaining how to use stevia. The first has a conversion chart for replacing sugar with stevia.  Use these charts when the amount of sugar is minimal and not important to the chemistry of the food. The second lists ways to make stevia powder or liquid from your own plant. And the third, from ehow, explains how to replace sugar in a recipe and what to use to add bulk.

Laura, you say, that's all good but how come I am just starting to hear about Stevia? If it is so great, where has it been? Oh what a question. Stevia has been used for centuries in countries like Paraguay. In 1971, the first commercial stevia was introduced in Japan. The Japanese consume more stevia than any other country, with stevia accounting for 40% of their sweetener market. Why not here? Health food stores in the U.S. started selling stevia in the late 1980s. Then in 1991, the FDA declared stevia an "unsafe food additive" claiming that not enough was known about the safety of the sweetener. Fans of stevia were angry, able to cite many studies that proved its safety and suspected the FDA was being pressured by industry. In 1994, the FDA revised its stevia stance and allowed the sweetener to be sold as a dietary supplement. It could not be added to food or drink. Mostly, it was sold in health food stores. Then in December of 2008, the FDA gave permission to two companies to use rebaudioside A (Reb-A), an extract from the stevia plant in new products that combine the extract with other sugars. You've seen these products on the shelf and in magazines in the last year: Purevia and Truvia to name two. For no reason that I can discover, the FDA has only approved the Reb-A extract as a food additive and not the stevia plant itself. These Reb-A products are not pure stevia. So I have some questions about them, but I'll save that for another post. For now, I just buy my pure stevia from health food stores ( or make my own soon!).

I've long admired this sweetener and favored it for sweetening drinks, but now I love it. Why? Two reasons. 1) Because I can grow it. 2) As I researched this post, I didn't find any red flags.

Stevia plants were for sale at Meijer (like a Wal-Mart) this spring. I bought one and wondered what it would do. It's an easy, fuss- free plant, growing bigger and bigger even as my girls and their friends would strip off leaves to suck in their sweetness.  It liked our cool summer and didn't have many water needs. It didn't try and bolt until late fall, the best time to begin drying the leaves so the sweetness is maximized.

 What will I do with the stevia? Make a powder using a bag and a rolling pin. Experiment. Maybe I'll make my own teabags with mint and stevia. Mmmmm. Dare I hope that there is a healthy sweetener for diabetics? Maybe I can have my cake and eat it too. But as always, no matter how great the sweetener, sweets are sweeter in small amounts.