Stevia sweetener is the extract of the stevia plant, native to South America, and comes in a powder form, in individual serving packets (like the low-calorie saccharin-type products you’re used to seeing). For several years, I’d been buying the packets to substitute for sugar in coffee and tea, but I found that it had a bitter aftertaste. I tolerated it, wanting to stay away from processed sugar as much as possible, but I didn’t enjoy it.

Recently though, a friend told me that he buys stevia in liquid form. I decided to give it a try. For about $9 you can buy a 2 oz. bottle with an eyedropper cap so you can add stevia extract drop by drop, to your exact taste. The package says it contains 461 servings, if you use 4 drops per serving, which is a lot of sweet for the money. (FYI, I bought mine at New Frontiers here in Flagstaff.)

What I found is that it’s a perfect way to sweeten my tea without adding any calories, and there’s no aftertaste!

Depending on the recipe, baking with stevia could work. It won’t provide the chemical reaction that some recipes, like meringues, require to work, but if you’re trying to cut empty calories in favor of healthy calories, it’s probably worth a few experiments to see if it works in your favorite recipes, either alone or in combination with a reduced amount of sugar.

Comments or questions are welcome.

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