# Stevia



## 17908 (Oct 18, 2006)

Does anybody know if Stevia is OK with Pimental's recommendations for diet? What I can find on it says that it isn't digested, which would mean it would provide food for bacteria. Maybe somebody can help me on this.Also . . . why is aspartame OK with Pimental.


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## Nanobug (Nov 7, 2006)

> quote:why is aspartame OK with Pimental


He says in his book it doesn't feed the bacteria.


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

You don't digest or aborb it doesn't automatically mean that the bacteria do.Splenda from what I read usually isn't something the bacteria can eat either, so that is what you have to look at. Yep, bacteria eat a lot of things we cannot, but there are things nothing at all eats.The substitute sugar with stevia in recipes seem to indicate at least yeast do not ferment it.Since it isn't approved for food use in the US by the FDA it may not be something a lot of people have looked at.If http://www.happystomach.com/stevia.htm has accurate information (there is some debate on the toxicology of stevia and it doesn't have the world wide approval some tend to claim. It is used in a few countries usually for specific uses, that may not translate to safe in large quantities in soft drinks and all the other products Americans tend to eat...but that is all debatable points) Anywho...it says it doesn't feed the oral bacteria and those tend to eat a lot of the same things that colon bacteria do so it doesn't sound like much of anything can digest it.K.


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## 17908 (Oct 18, 2006)

Pimental says Splenda is one of the worst things you can eat. Sucralose is pure bacteria food, according to him.I'll look at that Stevia info. Thanks.


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## Nanobug (Nov 7, 2006)

> quote:Splenda from what I read usually isn't something the bacteria can eat either


Pimentel says that bacteria do feed on sucralose (0% for you, 100% for bacteria, as he puts it)


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## 17908 (Oct 18, 2006)

I found this article, but I need somebody to translate it for me.Abstract:Stevia rebaudiana standardized extracts (SSEs) are used as natural sweeteners or dietary supplements in different countries for their content of stevioside or rebaudioside A. These compounds possess up to 250 times the sweetness intensity of sucrose, and they are noncaloric and noncariogenic sweeteners. The aim of this study was to investigate the in vitro transformation of stevioside and rebaudioside A after incubation with human microflora, the influence of these sweeteners on human microbial fecal community and which specific groups metabolize preferentially stevioside and rebaudioside A. The experiments were carried out under strict anaerobic conditions in batch cultures inoculated with mixed fecal bacteria from volunteers. The hydrolysis was monitored by HPLC coupled to photodiode array and mass spectrometric detectors. Isolated bacterial strains from fecal materials incubated in selective broths were added to stevioside and rebaudioside A. These sweeteners were completely hydrolyzed to their aglycon steviol in 10 and 24 h, respectively. Interestingly, the human intestinal microflora was not able to degrade steviol. Furthermore, stevioside and rebaudioside A did not significantly influence the composition of fecal cultures; among the selected intestinal groups, bacteroides were the most efficient in hydrolyzing Stevia sweeteners to steviolhttp://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi/j.../jf0303619.html


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

I understand all the words but it is not clear to me what they found. Let me see if the full text will open. Sometimes abstracts end up being unclear because they try to pack too much into too few words.What I can get from a quick glance at the full paper is the bacteria do alter the original stevia compounds into another compound. Once they do that they can't do anything else with it. It certainly isn't being pulled apart to carbon dioxide and water like you would see with glucose.It doesn't look like this is something they are doing for a major fuel source since there were if anything fewer of some bacteria in the stevia treatments than the controls.I don't know what the chemical structures are or what they are taking off to make the metabolite. Sometimes in a general sense it is to get something they want. Like if there is some piece or part that they can use to build something they need they will pop it off of anything they can pop it off of. However, sometimes things metabolize stuff in order to get rid of it if it is something that gets into them that they don't want. If you break it apart, or stuff something on it so when you shove it back out of the cell it can't come back in that can be something that causes bacteria (or plants or animal) to do something with a compound. We do that in our liver, make stuff more water soluble so we can pee it out, or bind it to something so when you stick it back into the GI tract in the bile it can't be reabsorbed. Every species has to find a way to get the pieces parts it wants and get rid of compounds that it doesn't want.K.


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## Rick (never give up) (Oct 7, 2005)

I've read mostly the same information as you folks about Stevia.I've also been a Stevia consumer for almost a year now. It is the only way I can eat chocolate cause I make my own chocolate using Stevia instead of sugar, splenda, aspartame, etc.Before taking the Vivonex, I asked a ND about Stevia and he told me it is not to fear since it doesn't interact with anything, call it bacteria, yeasts or even oneself.I've used it with my vegetable juices, teas, etc... and it doesn't give me any problem so I guess it should be fine.


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