If you are one of those health-conscious consumers who has mindfully switched from pink or blue packets of sweetener to the more natural choice, stevia…we need to talk.

First, what is stevia anyhow?  Stevia is a sweetener made in a lab but starting with a plant.  The pink and blue stuff is also made in a lab but starting with…umm…not a plant.  So in this regard, stevia is “natural”. 

Stevia belongs to a group of products known as nonnutritive sweeteners. It is pretty new to this club so we don’t have a long track record of its use in the US.  In the US, pure stevia extracts (those made in the lab) are considered by the FDA as GRAS (which stands for generally recognized as safe).  There is some nitpickiness at the FDA differentiating whole leaf stevia extracts (which may have some serious effects on blood sugar, blood pressure, and the kidneys) and “high-purity steviol glycosides”, and it...