IDK, but FYI the asapartame carcinogen meme from 2023 was yet another example of health news misinfo. It was classified as a Group 2B possible carcinogen, making it as possibly carcinogenic as coffee, and less carcinogenic than being a fry cook…

They find the stevia and they extract it

its a sweetener so any “health benefits” come in the form of it not being sugar, which has a number of ill effects especially in the refined forms and lrge quantities we consume it in. the leaf isnt “good for you” on its own it just doesnt have the same negative effects as HFCS. And it is generally regarded as safe but idk if there have been many specific studies.

Doesn’t taste very good

I grew a stevia plant once and used the leaves for a sweetener as a try. It’s kind of artificially sweet tasting with a weird aftertaste (at least to me). It an entirely different chemical structure to other sweeteners, which makes me question why there aren’t studies about it.

Presumably the extract is made by water extraction and concentration. That is, soaking in water and then drying the water away. However, I don’t know this for sure.

I found a study from 2002 that reviews safety tests of stevia compounds, and it appears that it is very safe. https://www.everstevia.com/Safety-Evaluation_of_Stevia.pdf

I don’t think stevia has any known health benefits, but it’s still a lot better for you than sugar. Some people argue it’s a bit better than stuff like aspartame, but it probably doesn’t matter unless you’re consuming an ungodly amount of artificial sweeteners every day.

Zevia is good, we drink it regularly. They’ve got a bunch of flavours. And yeah it’s just plant based non sugar sweetener. It’s pretty anodyne as far as I have read

Never heard about it having any health benefits or whatever, it’s just a sweetener. Probably not missing much by taking it out of the leaf.

That’s the thing from breaking bad which rich people consume on the daily.

In my experience it exacerbated my gas problems, so it’s bad if that’s a problem you have.

Stevia is a plant, literally an herb. The fresh leaves, when chewed, has a sweetish taste to it from some other chemical compound other than “sugar”. If you’re drinking hot stuff, you can drop whole fresh leaves into the hot liquid to steep and that should draw out some of the sweet flavor.

Get a bunch of leaves, dry them and grind them into a powder and you’ve got a sweetening agent that can be spooned out and mixed into things.

Not terrible for you like aspartame might be or with some dodgy gastro-intestinal effects of xylitol.

Sources: I worked at a grocery store that catered to the hippyish crowd for a long time and my spouse does small scale farm work at home and tried growing stevia for funsies.

No soda is healthy for you. Stevia extract (steviol glycosides) is just a zero calorie sweetener. It looks like sugar to your taste buds but you don’t break it down so it doesn’t give you any energy. I can’t remember any specifics but I think stevia is less bad than other sweeteners like sucralose, aspartame, acesulfame k, etc. Those have some nasty side effects.

It’s my favorite 0 calorie sweetener. But some people don’t like the taste i guess.

All I know is I put that shit in my coffee and I love it.

I got enough problems without worrying about whether or not it’s any worse for me than inhaling car exhaust while going for a walk.

its zero calorie but also tastes disgusting so.