the state of stevia in the uk ?
hello
i visited london this spring, when i had a discussion with a bodybuilder who i recommended stevia as an alternative to the artificial sweeteners that come with diet drinks and whey protein powders.
just this week i was very happy to have found in the migros, one of the biggest grocery chains in switzerland, the product assugrin steviasweet being featured very prominently ... i bought it, tried it and am fairly happy with it.
i do not suffer from diabetes, but have just put on 20 surplus kilograms in the last 3 years. so, i decided beginning of july this year to get this situation changed and started a high vegetables, high salad, olive oil, apple vinegar diet .... plus apples as main fruit input ... and a rigorous 1 hour intensive exercise ... quite stupid one ... 2500 times per hour lifting each knee up to the waist, fast, untill half of the tshirt is wet of transpiration ... and now i am nearly there ... 2 months later i lost 13 kilograms, am
188 centimeters high, now 88 kilograms, was 101 beginning of july ... my goal is to reach 80 to 83 kilograms till first of january
but actually, what i wanted to talk about, the state of stevia in the uk
i searched for assugrin steviasweet at google.co.uk and there were no results for it... so obviously assugrin does not export it to the uk
but one might actually send an email to the company to ask if they plan to do that ... or actually, i could do that .... yes i will.... and then report back to here what they replied
meanwhile ... let us check out, what i can google find for stevia in the uk
there is a website called healthmonthly in the uk, what sells
Swanson Stevia Extract 112g
and more
another website called indigo herbs of glastonburry also has stevia extract
other websites ( all with co.uk domainnames ) what have stevia products :
naturallygreen
godshaer
following this quick results i guess that it is at this time allowed to sell and buy stevia in the uk .... but i will have a check on that ... just a moment...
mmmh... i am surprised to read the following in an article dated 8 september 2011 at a food industry website
( actually this means that the big companies have to wait a bit before they can enter the market... gives the little brave ones a bit of market share )
"With European approval for high purity stevia ingredients expected by the end of this year, PureCircle has stepped up its application support for customers preparing for launches across Europe.
France, which has led the EU with a temporary approval for high purity stevia sweeteners, has experienced rapid growth in stevia awareness and early market adoption in the low-calorie sweetener category. Similar activity is anticipated across Europe, including the UK, which is one of the largest markets for sweeteners in Europe."
and another one from 9 september 2011
"Belgian chocolate firm Cavalier has confirmed that it is planning to launch the UK's first chocolate range containing stevia from January next year, while other launches across the EU will also follow initial listings in Belgium from November"
and yet another one, dated 2 september 2011
"HEARTLAND SWEETENERS, a global leader in the sugar substitute business, is set to revolutionise the UK sweeteners market with the launch of its new-generation Nevella® Stevia brand.
Stevia is the world’s first natural sugar substitute and – with full EU approval of this no-calorie sweetener expected as early as November – it is set to have a “massive impact” on a UK market which is worth around £82 million* but has been declining by 8% per annum and is in need of innovation.(...)Heartland’s Nevella® Stevia range will be launch into the UK market as soon as EU approval of Stevia is announced, which could be as early as November of this year. "
this one is a bit off topic, as it is about a german product sold in germany ... but i believe that the
food regulation is centrally organised in the EU ...
from 2 september 2011
"Organic milk product specialist Molkerei Scheitz from Andechser dairy in Bavaria, Germany has taken its stevia”fruit yogurt, sweetened by stevia juice, temporarily off the market. The state food safety authority informed the dairy that it was not sure whether the sweetener, a natural product prepared from the juice of the South American honey weed and 300 times sweeter than conventional cane sugar, is actually permitted in food according to German law. The Andechser Stevia yogurt was certified as approved without any problem back in February this year. And in March a European Court decision in connection with another case described stevia as “a completely normal food additive”.
According to marketing experts, the new stevia organic yogurts had been selling extremely well throughout Germany. When the Bavarian authority announced a rethink on stevia juice, it did not directly ban sales of the yogurt but merely said that it was not sure whether stevia came under the latest issue of the German Novel Food Act.
The French dairy Danone claimed to be the first in Europe to use stevia in dairy products when it launched a fruit yogurt with the sweetener in December 2009.
Despite its massive sweetness, the great attraction of stevia in human diets is that it is virtually calorie-free.
Meanwhile, Molkerei Scheitz (83 million kg biomilk/year) is preparing its case for the Bavarian court, pointing out that stevia has been used in foods other than dairy products in Europe for 13 years now, as well as being accepted as a safe and traditional sweetener in South American foods for many hundreds of years."
to finish with this train of citings, i am going to add an excerpt of an eu website
http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/topics/topic/additives.htm
In 2010, two studies on possible health risks related to the consumption of artificial sweeteners were published, namely a carcinogenicity study in mice exposed to aspartame through feed conducted by the ERF (Soffritti et al., 2010[1]), and an epidemiological study on the association between intakes of artificially sweetened soft drinks and increased incidence of preterm delivery (Halldorsson et al., 2010[2]). In a February 2011 statement, EFSA concluded that the two studies do not give reason to reconsider previous safety assessments of aspartame or of other sweeteners currently authorised in the European Union. EFSA’s review of these studies was carried out in co-operation with France’s Agency for Food, Environment and Occupational Health Safety which is also undertaking work in this area (Anses[3]).
In May 2011, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) was asked by the European Commission to bring forward the full re-evaluation of the safety of aspartame (E 951) to 2012. Previously planned for completion by 2020, the review of this individual sweetener is part of the systematic re-evaluation of all food additives authorised in the European Union prior to 20 January 2009, foreseen by Regulation (EU) No 257/2010.
Topic: Food additives – EU framework
Request from the European Commission for a full re-evaluation of aspartame
EFSA accepted the mandate for the re-evaluation of aspartame, stipulating the need for a public call for scientific data, which was launched on 1 June 2011, as well as a thorough literature review. Additionally, the Authority will liaise closely with the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health Safety (ANSES) on their nutritional risk/benefit assessment of sweeteners.
Topic A-Z: Aspartame
Steviol glycosides
The ANS Panel has also looked at steviol glycosides, sweeteners extracted from the leaves of the stevia plant. In an opinion published in April 2010, it concluded that these substances are neither genotoxic, nor carcinogenic and established an ADI of 4 mg per kg body weight per day. The Panel also noted that this ADI could be exceeded by both adults and children if these sweeteners were used at the maximum levels proposed by the applicants. Following a request from the European Commission, in January 2011, EFSA also reviewed its previous assessment of consumer exposure to these sweeteners based on the revised levels of use proposed by the applicants.
In order to ensure that the use of such sweeteners would be safe for consumers, the Commission therefore asked industry to revise the uses proposed for the substances and EFSA to carry out a new exposure assessment on the revised uses. In January 2011, EFSA concluded that although the revised exposure estimates are slightly lower than those of the April 2010 opinion, adults and children who are high consumers of foods containing these sweeteners, could still exceed the ADI established by the Panel if the sweeteners are used at maximum levels.
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i can also report, that on the glass of steviasweet of assugrin company i bought in a big grocery store in switzerland this week, there is a consumption advice on it, what says that so and so much table spoons are the maximum recommended dose for children ...
i am happy that the powder they sell is somehow stretched with fibres and so ... because i also bought a flask of Steviol glycosides in an alcohol sollution ... what is really difficult to properly dosage ... i ended up having to pour one liter water down with my steviol sweetened coffee ... so, i am looking forward for the big companies getting into the stevia market storm end of this year or beginning next year
