Stevia

Last week I gave one of my plants a haircut. The leaves that came off this plant were put into a bowl on my counter and today I found that they were completely dry. They are ready to be put into a glass jar to keep them just the way they are.

This plant isn't a beauty but we sure like her. Her name is Stevia and she is a wonderful dessert for after dinner.

Dr. Duke's Database has outlined 30 components in this plant with Stevioside being 210 times sweeter than sucrose.

If that were all that Stevia had to offer it might be enough but on checking what other properties this plant has and what it is capable of doing, makes me wonder why we have SWEET & LOW or any of the other sugar substitutes.

I found the following things in this database. There are three properties in Stevia that are antiaging. Here is a reason to use this to sweeten foods. I found five constituents in this plant that have antialzheimerian properties. Seven things were antiarthritic, with five things being antiasthmatic. Seven of its 30 constituents were antidiabetic and yet it is sweet with no sugar in it. This should be on the American Diabetic Association's list but it isn't. What they have is cancer causing and yet I found Seven constituents in this plant that are cancer preventive. Everything that I have read about this plant talks about it being non-toxic and very safe to use.

Can you believe some of this? Eight of its constituents are cardioprotective. Well, I bumped into so much in this database on this plant that I even went back a third time to count how many of its constituents were anticataract agents. I found only six. But some of the other stuff that Stevia can do like being an antidepressant, antioxidant, antiviral, antispasmodic, antimigraine, Candidicide and vasodilator. I ran into one property that was antipapillomic. (This is a specific virus, of which there are 72 varieties that have been known to create cancers.) One constituent was even neuroprotective, it takes care of our nervous system.

I know that is a lot to take in on one plant but these guys are wonderful. You don't have to be taking pills for this or that but nibbling on some of these wonderful plants from time to time give the body so much to build on.

By the way, eating a leaf off the plant is a fun thing to do and most of my friends are surprised by its taste. People are so leary of everything, so I find that when I give a leaf to someone to taste, I usually have to put one in my mouth too. That way they know that it is safe.

Let's talk about how I can use my leaves now that they are dry. I can put them into an herbal tea that is bitter to sweeten it. I could make a tea out of just Stevia leaves and bottle that to be used as sweet drops when needed perhaps on my grapefruit. I could grind the leaves up and use them in baking, remembering that it will add a green color to whatever I am making. I must remember that it is sweeter than the same amount of sugar.

In my classes, I have my students taste a drop of processed Stevia. They find it rather bitter. I am not sure how it is processed commercially but when I let them taste the ground up powder that I make, they can tell the difference.

Try some Stevia today.