Okay, so I drink way too much soda. Mountain Dew Code Red to be exact. And as good as it tastes, and it does taste good, I know all that sugar can't be good for me. So, I've been looking for beverage alternatives.
I didn't think this would be such a huge task, since I actually like tea and juices, and I'm sure the occasional glass of water never killed anyone. But the biggest dilemma would be the caffeine. I need it. Thus I decided, tea it would have to be.
would you like a little tea with your sugar?
So, I headed off to the store and bought a couple of small bottles of sweet tea. I love tea, so I was pretty sure this was going to be a breeze. And taste-wise, it was. It was cold, crisp and refreshing. Of course, when I checked the label, I realized why it tasted so good. Unbelievably enough, the tea actually had more sugar than my beloved Code Red -- and with red Mountain Dew clocking in at about 45 grams of sugar per twelve ounce can, this is no small feat.
Okay, so packaged sweetened tea wasn't going to cut it, coffee is great, but more like a dessert for me than an all-day beverage, and I despise diet sodas. I needed caffeine, no diet taste, and no sugar.
could stevia be my salvation?
Enter stevia. For those of you who've never heard of it, stevia is an herb that is up to 300 times more sweet than sugar, but contains no calories.
It's packaged in a variety of forms (flavored, liquid, powder), and one of the major distributors of it in the U.S. is a company called SweetLeaf.
I happen to live in a very tree-hugging type community, so I wasn't terribly surprised to find this sweetener right there on my grocery store shelves. The package I bought contained 50 sugar-sized packets, and mentioned something about having fiber added to it. Hey, I was on a healthy roll.
I'm a taster, so I couldn't resist tasting the powder as soon as I got it home. Good God, it was horrible. I wasn't hopeful.
the sweet taste of stevia
Next, I added just a smidge (and when I say "smidge," I mean maybe a tenth of a packet) to some cold, unsweetened black tea.
It was amazing. The tea actually tasted sweet. Not as sweet as if I'd dumped three or four sugar packets into it the way I normally would, but damn, considering how little I used, I was incredulous.
when bad things happen to good beverages
Flash-forward a few days later. I want to experiment some more with making the perfectly sweet, caffeine-laden, calorie free iced-tea drink. This time I used nearly a whole packet of "Stevia Plus." In a word: UGH!
In addition to that awful "diet" taste that makes me hate diet soda, the added fiber made me feel a little nauseous.
In fact, several hours later, I still feel a little nauseous, but my Code Red is helping to ease my pain.
Since it's going to be a few days before I'm up for playing around with stevia again, I'm going to currently give it two stars. One wouldn't be fair, since I did have the one good experience, and I'm willing to try again.
But until I conduct more testing, anything more would be unjust.
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