I thought I had finally found a healthy drink I liked with no artificial sweetness and they had to go and fuck it up
Stevia isn’t artificial lol
But it tastes artificial and fucks with lots of tummies.
I think anything you’re not used to has the potential to fuck with your tummy
I have yet to find a low calorie sweetener that doesn’t bother my digestive system. My wife, who lives on diet Pepsi, doesn’t believe me.
I have the exact same issue! Haven’t met anyone else with the same problem yet. Really sucks that more and more non-diet drinks are containing some amount of artificial sweetener.
Liquorice (there’s also an actual root, not just the confectionery) is very sweet and tummy-friendly, actually recognised as a herbal remedy over here for (mild) gastritis because antiinflammatory and antispasmodic (alongside helping with coughs and having some antibacterial properties) but too much will fuck with your blood pressure, avoid it if you have any issues there. A bit will probably be fine but a habit generally isn’t “a bit”.
There’s some medicinal teas over here which pretty much only contain it to taste better (otherwise makes no sense in combination with e.g. valerian). The stuff is actually sweet and pleasant, not a neutral but woody sweetness, not to be confused with North European liquorice confectionery where the predominant flavour is Salammoniac. Which are also very good… hey I grew up with the stuff, don’t look at me like that. Anyhow if you want a naturally sweet herbal tea adding a couple of shavings of the stuff should do the trick.
You’re thinking of xylitol which gets mixed with commercial stevia crystals to cut the sweetness
Have we applied the same scrutiny to HFCS or refined Sugar itself? Or does sugar get a pass because it was the first plant processed for its sweetness?
On the plus side, stevia isn’t artificial.
What is “artificial?”
It is all marketing BS
Generally, artificial sweeteners are chemically synthesized while natural sweeteners are grown and refined.
I used to grow the stevia plant in my garden.
Does that matter at all?
In reality it is all arbitrary. By that definition table salt is artificial and poison nightshade is natural.
Hey, you asked… I just answered.
That’s precisely why I use it in my coffee and have for many years. However there’s a big difference from one brand to another I’ve found. Sweet Leaf stevia drops are the only kind I’ll use now.
Might not be artificial, but it doesn’t look natural in sweetener form:
The process of extracting stevia -
Dried stevia leaves are subjected to purified water first. Then followed by a precipitation process with ferric chloride and calcium hydroxide to remove non-soluble plant materials & other impurities and follow filtration.
Then the leaf extract goes through an adsorption resin, which is used to trap the steviol glycosides of the leaf extract.
Afterward, wash the resin with ethanol to release steviol glycosides and decolorize the resulting solution with activated carbon to remove the colors in leaves, and then concentrated by evaporation.
Again, go through the process of decolorization, filtration and spray-drying. The spray-dried product is then combined with similarly processed additional extracts, dissolved in ethanol and/or methanol, crystallized and filtered. Finally, after further processes of crystallization, filtered and spray-dried to obtain pure stevioside.
Taken from here: https://foodadditives.net/natural-sweeteners/stevioside/#easy-footnote-bottom-1-1949
You don’t know how sugar is made, do you?
They don’t get simple chemistry is required to refine and purify stuff either apparently lol
Or agave syrup apparently
Yeah , it’s from an actual plant.
Unless it’s mixed with erythritol
Stevia is DISGUSTING and by far the worst non-sugar sweetener. Aspartame is good in my opinion.
It’s interesting to read people’s reactions to stevia. I don’t seem to have the same reactions/aftertaste others point out.
I much prefer stevia over other sweeteners. I wonder if there is some sort of cilantro type thing going on.
Edit: Turns out stevia can taste different to other people!
I’ve had a fresh stevia leaf before, totally amazingly delicious. However i can’t stand it as a sweetener in drinks.
Because it’s subjective
Imo stevia is one of the best of the no calorie sweeteners, but since that entire category is absolutely abhorrent that’s sort of like being called the fastest snail.
Stevia does have a bit of an aftertaste, but it’s fine for me in, say, coffee.
IIRC, the major limiting issue with aspartame is that it’s not heat-stable to the degree that sugar is, so there are a bunch of products that are made with sugar that you can’t make with aspartame, problem for baking.
kagis
Yeah:
https://www.fda.gov/food/food-additives-petitions/aspartame-and-other-sweeteners-food
Aspartame is not heat stable and loses its sweetness when heated, so it typically isn’t used in baked goods.
There is no one alternative sweetener that has all of sugar’s properties, just without the calories, which is what people really want.
Stevia has the aftertaste. Aspartame isn’t heat stable. A lot of the sugar alcohols – like xylitol, which is really common in sugar-free candy – are laxatives, so if you eat that whole bag of candy, you are going to have horrendous diarrhea. You gotta use a patchwork of alternative sweeteners to replace sugar, based on the properties of a particular sugar use.
Why wouldn’t you just use sugar
If you are going to mistreat your body then go big or go home.
Added sugar is considerably worse for you than any zero calorie sweetener. Don’t give me that IT’S CHEMICALS bullshit either. Aspartame is one of the most tested food additive world wide and it’s not found to be unsafe.
Aspartame gives me headaches. Like “I can’t interact with people” headaches. I’ve tried it a few times and it’s always directly afterwards.
That said Stevia gives me a reaction like I had 5x the same amount of sugar, so I just have to remember if I’m adding it to something don’t use much or I’ll be hyper and then crash terribly. But at least I don’t get headaches.
Sugar gives me no problems if I have it in moderation. I generally drink water, but if I have a soda, I have one and I’m done. It’s a treat, not a way of life. Drink water people, it’s actually good for you.
It is all really terrible for you in the long run. There are phycological impacts of sweetness.
Also drinking anything heavily flavored is problematic for your kidneys and heart. A little coffee or tea isn’t a problem but if you start drinking Soda as a water replacement it will come back to bite you.
I do agree that terms “artificial”, “chemicals”, “non GMO” and “organic” are BS. Ultimately it is more phycological than anything.
Diabetes?
You do realize manufactures have to wear gas masks when pouring in that junk right?
OH MY GOD!!! MASKS!?! It must be rat poison!
People working with powders should be wearing masks.
I prefer stevia to just regular sugar. I go out of my way when buying soda to get ones with stevia because they just taste better.
lol enjoy your cancer
deleted by creator
The unsweetened tea fight is a losing battle. The only way to get it is to make it yourself.
What about tejava (spelling?)
This isn’t unsweetened tea either. It’s probably very sweet considering how high in the order agave syrup is
“Death to plastic”
“Here drink from this plastic-lined can” (https://www.plasticstoday.com/business/liquid-death-may-murder-your-thirst-but-it-won-t-kill-plastic-no-matter-what-the-ads-say)
Not only that, but unless you can guarantee that a significant portion users will recycle those aluminum cans, they are significantly more energy intensive to manufacture compared to single use plastic bottles.
Do most people not recycle cans?
Here in Cleveland, we used to just put all trash, no recycling, on the lawn. Then in 2008 or so, they put out a recycling innitive. Each resident had to pay $10 per family (so duplexs would buy 2 per house), and they’d get a blue bin. You put the recycling in the blue bin, and a seperate truck picks that up.
Sounds great right?
Welll…in 2020 or so they found out the 1st truck would take your black bin regular trash, and the 2nd truck would take your blue bin recyclables, and then BOTH trucks would drop off in the same pile, in the same landfill with zero recycling done.
Since that was discovered I see a massive 90%+ dropoff in blue bins. Not only have people lost faith in buying blue bins at all, but most people now use their blue bins as 2nd regular non-recycling trash can.
and then BOTH trucks would drop off in the same pile, in the same landfill with zero recycling done.
That’s not true, especially for cans. It’s more effective to sort trash at a central location than to have consumers do it beforehand. Aluminum recycling alone turns a significant profit. Glass is also profitable by itself.
Waste management companies should be paying you for your cans; if they are charging you for recycling, you should consider taking your cans to a scrap yard rather than leaving them in your trash.
I think you’re misunderstanding.
I’m not stating how recycling SHOULD work. I’m stating how the city of Cleveland DID (or rather did NOT) operate it’s own recycling innitive.
They sold you a blue bin for $10. And then for 12 years, unknown to the public, they picked up the recycleables, and didn’t recycle them.
It was a cash grab to get millions of dollars from residents, to perform a service that was never properly performed.
My city started doing a similar thing. Their contracted recycling plants started rejecting the truck loads because they were seeing less than 40% recyclable content in the shipments. Lots of people overestimate how much of their trash is recyclable, and over-utilize the recycling bin.
Apparently the recycling plants will accept as low as 50% recyclable content in the load, anything under that they for a prolonged period, they start rejecting the loads.
So for a year our city was just taking the recycling bin loads to the landfill. Years ago most cities could just sell it directly to China, ship it over on enormous garbage boats, but even China has stopped accepting our nonsense.
Our city had to do a big re-education campaign, and send out new stickers for the bin lids, to get residents to put only recyclable things in the recycle bins.
Bro. Citation needed.
It’s true, I have no idea what actually happens to my recycling after it’s picked up, but I guess I can hope…
It’s easier if you don’t hope. Less inevitable disappointment that way.
Where I live, every time you buy a plastic bottle, aluminum can or glass bottle, you pay extra 10 cents that you get back when you take them to the recycling (that every store is mandated to have, IIRC).
And do you do that?
Yes? Because every time we bring back a bag of bottles, we get about 10€. Would you rather throw out the 10€?
I also return mine but most people around me don’t seem to. You can often find them littering the streets or walkways or even out in the woods unfortunately.
According to the actual Aluminum Association, only 43% of aluminum cans shipped within the United States are recycled.
Before this picture I thought Liquid Death was literally water in a can.
Had no idea they added stuff.
Yeah the slogan goes “Don’t be scared. It’s just water.” So same here, I thought it was just water lol.
They have a few different products including plain water
i have no issue with stevia other than it tastes fucking awful. just a terrible aftertaste that makes me never want to consume it ever, in any configuration.
Stevia is FOUL.
And it isn’t exactly good for you
Why?
Makes your body think it got sugar but it didn’t
Further studies are required to conclude a direct correlation of artificial sweeteners with decreased insulin sensitivity.
So, having a pre-chilled and conveniently-available product can be nice when you’re away from home, but if this is for at home, have you ever considered just, you know, making a pitcher of your own drink with whatever you want? Maybe take a Thermos of the stuff chilled or iced if you’re on the go? I mean, if you want agave as your sweetener, then you can make a drink with just agave and then tweak it to however you want. Food-grade citric acid is a preservative – I have a bottle in the pantry. You can purchase all sorts of flavors.
Like, if you buy a premade good, then you can benefit from the R&D done by the company, but if you have extremely exacting demands that you feel no company is making, you can rage about it or just make what you want. In general, drinks have an enormous markup – I mean, you’re mostly buying water with a little flavoring and coloring – so you can have exactly what you want and it’ll probably be cheaper, too.
Stevia is not artificial you silly duck. And it’s more sustainable to grow than the fucking sugar you hypocritically enjoy every day. Get over it.
Stevia is not artificial you silly duck.
Not to mention that while it’s OP’s money, at least in the US, natural and artificial sweeteners (or flavors) can be chemically-identical. I remember a bit…might have been from NPR Planet Money…on a substance that literally could be obtained either way, but some people thought that artificial flavors were bad, so there was a market for companies to go out and (more-expensively) extract the thing so that they could make the food they made say “natural flavor” rather than “artificial flavor”. The designation is just a function of whether you synthesize or extract the thing, the manufacturing process. It doesn’t say anything about the actual content.
EDIT: Not the article I was thinking of, but same idea:
https://health.wusf.usf.edu/npr-health/2017-11-03/is-natural-flavor-healthier-than-artificial-flavor
All three experts say that ultimately, natural and artificial flavors are not that different. While chemists make natural flavors by extracting chemicals from natural ingredients, artificial flavors are made by creating the same chemicals synthetically.
Platkin says the reason companies bother to use natural flavors rather than artificial flavors is simple: marketing.
“Many of these products have health halos, and that’s what concerns me typically,” says Platkin. Consumers may believe products with natural flavors are healthier, though they’re nutritionally no different from those with artificial flavors.
These are great reads. Thank you for the links!
Also, thank you for paraphrasing one of them, because they helped pique my interest further.
Appreciate you!
Stevia is incredibly misleading as a product
I love how you say this, offer zero explanation as to why and just drop the mic.
I’m not here to defend Stevia, and I could give two shits about it; I’m here because I don’t believe you, unless you please provide us all something to read, because we are done taking things people say at face value.
It is marketed as somehow healthy when the reality is drinking anything with strong sweeteners is problematic. It offers a false sense of security. Instead of actually cutting back on Soda and junk food people switch to the low and zero sugar products.
It is like switching from smoking to vaping. Sure it might be better but the problem still persists.
You can drink a zero sugar saccharine drink every day for the rest of your life and experience no problems from it whatsoever. It’s the most tested artificial sweetener in history and has been used commercially since the 1890s.
People switching to the low and zero sugar products is a good thing. It is much healthier than people drinking sugary beverages - which is the alternative that that they replace. They do not replace water.
Switching from smoking to vaping is an improvement, but not a fair comparison as vaping has been shown to have significant negative health impacts.
To clarify I don’t necessarily have an issue with stevia itself it’s the fact that it is usually mixed with erythritol which is bad for you.
usually mixed with erythritol
Your photo shows no evidence of this.
is bad for you
I’m fucking done reading shit on the internet where people say things and expect us to believe them at face value. You made this statement, and it isn’t my burden to provide evidence to prove you correct, you will.
Please provide everyone here a link for us to read and change our minds.
Do you have any actual data showing that reasonable amounts of erythritol is worse for you than any alternatives?
erythritol
Shouldn’t that be on the label if it was in there too? How can you assume it is when it’s not labelled?
IDK what shitty country this is from, but it’s for sure an illegal label here (EU), on at least 2 counts.
Drink water
it has infected everything and it’s fucking awful.
I’d be interested in finding out if there’s a genetic component to this, like people who taste soap in coriander, because I can’t believe any reasonable person would put this nonsense in anything they want to make a profit on.
This label part about plastics is what’s called green-washing here, and is illegal unless what they are doing is a very signifikant part of the price of the product.
The labeling of what’s NOT in the drink is also under similar regulation, but I don’t recall what it’s called. But the fact that a “sugar” drink doesn’t contain fat is irrelevant and misleading.Whatever country this is from has bullshit regulation.
The thing that is ABSOLUTELY NOT a problem is the Stevia which is clearly labeled!So the “mildly infuriating” part is completely misguided compared to the real problems of that product.
Edit:
Just noticed, Carbs 3%, sugar 6% incl. added sugar 12%.
That’s impossible! You can’t have less carbs than sugar, since sugar is a carb. So these labels are probably illegal in EU on no less than 3 counts!!It’s a US label and the percents are % of recommended daily intake. So that’s 3% of your daily recommended carbohydrate intake, 6% of your daily recommended intake of sugar, and 12% of your daily recommended intake of “added” sugar. The recommendation is something like, no more than half of your carbs should come from sugar, and no more than half of those should be added during manufacturing (i.e. most of your sugar intake should be from fresh fruit, etc.). So the numbers do line up.
In reality there is no recommended sugar intake. We can do perfectly well with zero grams of sugar every single day for a whole life, without it causing a single health issue.
So the label remains nonsense.There is a recommended intake of vegetables and fruit, but not for sugar. Not by any factual based health measure.
You would have a point if the recommendation was a minimum daily intake. It’s not. It is a maximum. A recommended limit that you should not exceed.
The USDA recommendation is that sugar should make up no more than 10% of total caloric intake. The percentages you see are based on a 2000 (kilo)calorie daily diet.
That recommendation is perfectly consistent with your assertion that “we can do perfectly well with zero grams of sugar every single day”.
The labeling of what’s NOT in the drink is also under similar regulation,
For consistency, the regulations on labeling requires listing quantities of all of those specific nutrients, whether they are present or not.
Not a significant source of saturated fat, trans fat, cholesterol…
Those are the ones that are illegal, not protein 0g.
The fat parts are illegal because those are not normal content for that kind of product, trans fats are also regulated, and advertising that something is within regulation is illegal. Because it implies other products are not.
It’s funny how some people can’t even spot the problematic parts when pointed out, because they are so used to them.
The listed items are all mandatory parts of all labels. Everything inside that box is required, in that format. “Nutrition Facts” boxes are highly regulated. Remove those statements, and this label is no longer legally compliant.
You’ll note that “good” content (dietary fiber, vitamin d, calcium, iron, and potassium) are also listed, even though this product does not contain them.
Because all of these items are mandated to be present inside this box on all products, there is no implication that another product may or may not contain these items.
The content of that box is not considered “advertisement”. It’s just a simple, consistent, statement of facts.
It’s mandatory to label sweetened water as not containing Cholesterol or trans fat?
That’s outright moronic. Might as well demand labeling the amount of U35.
It’s moronic to require labeling what’s NOT in it, it ads noise and hides what’s actually in it.
I know American standards are sometimes stupid, but really?Kind of insane that things that would make a label illegal as misleading in EU is required in USA!?
That it’s a requirement in USA, doesn’t change the fact that it’s illegal in EU, because it doesn’t add meaningful information, and is therefore detrimental for quickly seeing the actual content.It is mandatory for the manufacturer to make an affirmative claim as to the cholesterol and trans fat content (along with several other items) of every food product sold in the US. The manufacturer is only liable for what they actually claim; this labeling standard forces them to make certain claims.
With the labeling you describe of the EU, I could look at every item in my pantry and refrigerator, and not realize that my diet is entirely missing any source of vitamin D, for example. If nothing in any of my labels even mentions vitamin D, I might not even realize it is something I should be looking for in my diet.
When every single item in my diet affirmatively claims “Not a significant source of vitamin D”, it’s a big clue that I’m not eating right.
There is a distinct difference in liability between “accidentally” forgetting to include the sodium content of a product, and affirmatively claiming it has no significant amount of sodium.
When I’m on a low sodium diet and a soy sauce manufacturer fails to list its sodium content on the label, I bear a large part of the responsibility. It is common knowledge that soy sauce is usually extremely high in salt, so I can’t reasonably claim their mislabeling was the cause of any harm I experience. But, if they were to affirmatively claim “not a significant source of sodium”, I’ll own their asses.
Mandating claims of these specific, important nutrients certainly does add meaningful information.
It’s not percent of total it’s percent of daily recommendation. I’m not defending that choice but it just isn’t the same.
Whatever country this is from has bullshit regulation.
I’ll give you one guess…
The only country I know of, that could have this shitty and misleading label and still be legal is USA, but I don’t know that for a fact.
I think if I saw these labels here in Denmark, I would call the police or health authorities immediately on the spot, which are responsible for enforcing declaration rules on items meant for consumption.Those labels are not merely mildly infuriating, they are attempts at scamming consumers.
Anything in a can is not going to be good for us
Stevia can only be added in the manufacturing process by a cyclone valve which is actually quite noisy.
