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First Taste of Stevia :(

SaskiaKC

Expert
I've just tasted stevia for the first time. It's the sweetener in the Duncan Hines "keto friendly" brownie mix I just sampled. Pretty grim. It's not really bitter; it's not really sweet. It has a funny taste. Duncan Hines has made delicious cake and brownie mixes for decades sweetened with sugar, so I'm blaming this disappointing taste on the stevia rather than anything else in the mix.

What are your experiences with/thoughts about stevia? I'm not going to bother testing this brownie's effect on my BG; the experience was too grim.

 
As you say an odd, and for me unpleasant, taste. Different brands apparently vary but I’ve not found one that I can bear.
 
I was about to make a dessert for visitors on Sunday. The recipe states Truvia, or other make of stevia. I haven't bought any sweetner yet? Which should I go for? Its a cheesecake thing nd I only need 30grams
 
I made a cheesecake a while ago and used Erythritol (sp?) and it came out ok. I have used it in all my baking as a sugar substitute since. I tend to use a small amount as I no longer have a sweet tongue.
Tried stevia once and threw the rest of the packet away, didn’t get on with the taste, too weird for me.
 
Xylitol is the most sugar like imo. But if you have dogs in the house it’s highly toxic to them and may have a small glycemic effect on some people.

Erythritol has a slight cooling flavour to a few people, next to no glycemic response and significantly fewer digestive effects than most sugar alcohols. A small number of people can be allergic to anything.

For disclosure I now use erythritol above anything else but started out on xylitol. Can’t stand stevia taste and tried monkfruit liquid drops at great expense and they tasted just like stevia. Many of the artificial sweeteners spike me and I don’t want to use them anyway. I refuse to use maltitol as it causes massive digestive upset and still spikes me as badly as sugar.
 
I once bought a loaf of bread that contained maltitol and it caused massive digestive upset for me too. I do OK on whatever sweeteners are put in diet soft drinks but I try to stay away from them.
 
I've only ever used erythritol and stevia, generally in combination, but I don't believe that all brands are equally acceptable. IMO Stevia is definitely an acquired taste and needs to be used with caution due to its excessive sweetness.

ETA The two commercial erythtritol/stevis brands I've found most acceptable have been Sukrin and Natvia, both of which were fairly readily available when i was first starting to use alternative sweeteners.
 
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Thank you @Robbity . I hadn't realized there were different brands of stevia. I'd thought it was a brand!

I did try the brownie mix again this morning. This time I was more careful to do the measurements exactly and to make sure the butter was thoroughly melted before I added it. This batch tasted better than the first one. But I think it must be an acquired taste. And I haven't acquired it.
 
I don’t enjoy stevia either.

I did read (once upon a time) that many stevia brands use grapefruit extract to preserve the stevia, which gives it the bitter backbite.

But then someone else once told me that to get the bitter taste from stevia you have to have a particular genetic makeup. Most people can’t taste it. A minority can.

No idea which theory is right. Or wrong. Or neither.
 
I hope this stevia wasn't made from grapefruit extract! Good grief, I'm not supposed to have grapefruit because of the statin I'm on. Yikes!
 
SaskiaKC said:
I hope this stevia wasn't made from grapefruit extract! Good grief, I'm not supposed to have grapefruit because of the statin I'm on. Yikes!
Click to expand...

stevia isn’t made from grapefruits. Stevia is made from stevia plants. Sometimes a little grapefruit extract is used to preserve it.

Grapefruit extract is made from the seeds not the fruit, and is different from the fruit, so it isn’t like eating a grapefruit.
 
Stevia contains various different compounds, and Rebaudioside A (AKA Reb A} apparently " is the least astringent and the least bitter, has the least persistent aftertaste, and was judged to have the most favorable sensory attributes of the four major steviol glycosides..." - and I believe this is also the most expensive option.

There's a fair bit of techie stuff on Google if you want more details.
 
So Agree with HSSS, Erythritol (so hard to spell..) has this odd cooling taste on your tongue, but taste is acceptable. Havn't tried Xylitol as was worried about it affecting my tummy but the stevia drops I bought were absolutely vile!! Very chemical taste, they were relatively expensive, so my tightwad brain can't throw them out, but I might as well as I won't use them again! Erythritol (getting easier..) every time for me now. And like for like with sugar, it's almost the same, E (much easier )is slightly less sweet, sometimes I use a bit of the brown E - but if I use all brown, I found the flavour a bit overwhelming.
 
I had an interesting conversation with someone here last night, another T2, like me, who said he would not touch any diet soft drinks because "they are worse for you than sugar." I have thought the same myself, for decades, ever since my aunt, a nurse, told my mother about the cancer risks of ingesting artificial sweeteners. That was probably 30-40 years ago and I know there are many other artificial sweeteners nowadays, but last night's conversation brought all that back to mind.
The man I spoke with said water is his favorite diet drink. It used to be mine. I want it to be again.
As for sweeteners in food I will try to either really limit the amount of sugary food I eat, or go cold turkey and not eat any at all. So far I have not succeeded with that.
 
First, I must confess to being a great fan of stevia - I don't mind the bitter after-taste - but can definitely taste it. My love of sweet has never gone away, which does not surprise me, as I was well-habituated/addicted to it in my life (oh and me with diabetes - no surprise!), and it is part of our species' make-up after all, so finding a good substitute that has no or minimal impact on my health is a godsend. Second fave is erytheritol, so am not surprised to find my go-to brand for sweeter-pie baking and ice cream making is a blend of both stevia and erytheritol - as in no 'digestive issues', no or very little effect on blood glucose.

I use half or even less of what is suggested in keto/LCHF recipes as a matter of course - I still like sweet, but have accustomed myself to a very little going a very long way.

My understanding of the problems with artificial sweeteners is that as with everything we eat and drink it has an impact on our gut-biome, and can affect our general digestion and our blood glucuse regulation in particular via that 'mechanism'. As in, the body does not recognise some of the super-duper sweeteners, one has an insulin response as the body believes it to be sugar anyway, I have read somewhere, (an insulin response is not fabulous for those of us with lots of insulin resistance), and then our gut biome has to deal with it, as they can't eat it, so it just has to be got rid of. How do you know if this is happening in your body? What is cutely called 'digestive issues' - you will know all right. And your blood glucose meter, if you are getting a spike that may be unacceptable for you.
 
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