Post: #1

The effects of baking soda, Apple Cider Vinegar, and coconut oil have all been discussed as magical health products. So, I figured I'd share something else along the lines of holistic medicine.

Stevia is a great first aid product.

Yes, it is a delicoius zero-calorie sweetener, but can also be put on wounds to make them heal better.

I've done this my entire life and know that it works.

It has even been through some research studies.

When you put stevia on a wound, it will sting like hell. But once you push through it, your cuts and scrapes will heal like never before. Scarring is reduced. The scab will turn dark brown (like the stevia), but once the new skin has formed, the dark scab will come off easily.

I bring a small bottle of "Sunrider Sunectar" with me in my toiletry bag and use it to sweeten drinks and heal my wounds while on the road.

Post: #2

I've noticed when I use Stevia for baking, it really curbs my appetite and hits the sweet tooth.

Some complain that it has a bad aftertaste. No complaints here though, love the stuff.

This is the first I've ever heard of it having baking soda-esque qualities.

Post: #3

(03-19-2015 09:24 PM)Checkmat Wrote:  I've noticed when I use Stevia for baking, it really curbs my appetite and hits the sweet tooth.

Some complain that it has a bad aftertaste. No complaints here though, love the stuff.

This is the first I've ever heard of it having baking soda-esque qualities.

Yes, I would like to hear more. I tend to be very skeptical of the various sweetener substitutes. I have heard some good things about stevia, but I remain somewhat of a skeptic.

Post: #4

Some complain about the aftertaste. Me - I love it. Being fed this stuff since childhood, my palate probably grew to like it at a young age.

As far as I know there's nothing bad about it. Aspartame has widely documented health risks, but I haven't heard of any problems with stevia.

Post: #5

It's good.

I found fresh stevia to be the most tasty with the least aftertaste. It grows indoors as well and takes very little.

Post: #6

Yep, this stuff is dope, it's found its way into various protein powders, and other pharmaceuticals. However, I'd grow my own like Zelcorpion suggested, it's easier to bypass the nasty chemicals they use to manipulate its texture when mixing it with other things. Keep it green bra.

Post: #7

(03-20-2015 12:01 AM)redbeard Wrote:  Some complain about the aftertaste. Me - I love it. Being fed this stuff since childhood, my palate probably grew to like it at a young age.

As far as I know there's nothing bad about it. Aspartame has widely documented health risks, but I haven't heard of any problems with stevia.

I have heard quite a few negatives about Aspartame; however, my concern with any substitute sweeteners may have to do more with some of the theories that I have heard regarding that some sweeteners could still cause the body to crave more sweets and to crave more carbs because of the sweetness of it (even though the product may have zero or low calories it is causing cravings for other foods). I am NOT sure which products would cause this, but I really get the sense that people drinking diet sodas are generally not doing themselves any favors and possibly some of the diet sodas are causing other craving issues in respect to their desires to eat carbs or other bad foods, such as processed junkie foods.

Post: #8

(03-20-2015 01:48 AM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  

(03-20-2015 12:01 AM)redbeard Wrote:  Some complain about the aftertaste. Me - I love it. Being fed this stuff since childhood, my palate probably grew to like it at a young age.

As far as I know there's nothing bad about it. Aspartame has widely documented health risks, but I haven't heard of any problems with stevia.

I have heard quite a few negatives about Aspartame; however, my concern with any substitute sweeteners may have to do more with some of the theories that I have heard regarding that some sweeteners could still cause the body to crave more sweets and to crave more carbs because of the sweetness of it (even though the product may have zero or low calories it is causing cravings for other foods). I am NOT sure which products would cause this, but I really get the sense that people drinking diet sodas are generally not doing themselves any favors and possibly some of the diet sodas are causing other craving issues in respect to their desires to eat carbs or other bad foods, such as processed junkie foods.

You are kidding right? The single most dangerous additives you can do to your body are artificial sweeteners.

Even the oldest one Saccharin was highly contested 100 years ago:
http://www.doctoryourself.com/history5.html

Aspartame itself is by far more deadly - it only passed on the third try after massive lobbying because not even the bought-and-paid-for FDA could let this massive poison pass so easily:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articl...-food.aspx

BTW - Sucralose or Splenda is even more deadly.

I remember this funny SCRUBS scene where the doctor says to the Starbucks barista, that he should indeed put more Splenda in his coffee - in fact so much, that even his cancer gets cancer. Hehe.

Stevia is way different - it is more healthy than sugar.
Xylitol is fine too.
If you want good sugar substitute then you can take coconut sugar or date sugar (essentially ground dates) - those contain massive amounts of nutrients as well.

Post: #9

Real talk about Sucralose...shits bad. When I came to Peru the only protein I could find had Sucralose in it as did my amino acids. Within a few days of taking them I would get headaches that felt like the ones you get when your hung over but I wasn't even drinking any alcohol. Then on the 4th day my neck was killing me.... I googled it and Sucralose can really fuck you up. It can cause joint pain and body aches and it fucks with our nervous system.

Post: #10

Liquid stevia I have found blends far better than the powder form. Its very powerful so only a few drops are usually needed.

Post: #11

(03-20-2015 02:13 AM)Zelcorpion Wrote:  

(03-20-2015 01:48 AM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  

(03-20-2015 12:01 AM)redbeard Wrote:  Some complain about the aftertaste. Me - I love it. Being fed this stuff since childhood, my palate probably grew to like it at a young age.

As far as I know there's nothing bad about it. Aspartame has widely documented health risks, but I haven't heard of any problems with stevia.

I have heard quite a few negatives about Aspartame; however, my concern with any substitute sweeteners may have to do more with some of the theories that I have heard regarding that some sweeteners could still cause the body to crave more sweets and to crave more carbs because of the sweetness of it (even though the product may have zero or low calories it is causing cravings for other foods). I am NOT sure which products would cause this, but I really get the sense that people drinking diet sodas are generally not doing themselves any favors and possibly some of the diet sodas are causing other craving issues in respect to their desires to eat carbs or other bad foods, such as processed junkie foods.

You are kidding right? The single most dangerous additives you can do to your body are artificial sweeteners.

Even the oldest one Saccharin was highly contested 100 years ago:
http://www.doctoryourself.com/history5.html

Aspartame itself is by far more deadly - it only passed on the third try after massive lobbying because not even the bought-and-paid-for FDA could let this massive poison pass so easily:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articl...-food.aspx

BTW - Sucralose or Splenda is even more deadly.

I remember this funny SCRUBS scene where the doctor says to the Starbucks barista, that he should indeed put more Splenda in his coffee - in fact so much, that even his cancer gets cancer. Hehe.

Stevia is way different - it is more healthy than sugar.
Xylitol is fine too.
If you want good sugar substitute then you can take coconut sugar or date sugar (essentially ground dates) - those contain massive amounts of nutrients as well.

Thanks for your information and your links. I am NOT sure if your "you are kidding right" is directed at me, but I would like to say that I was NOT kidding when I made my post. There was NO joking component in that post, and I was just making various layman's comments that were NOT too much disparate from the information that you provided.

You certainly seem much better read than me on this particular topic, so in that regard, I have the sense that your post will be very helpful to RVF guys, to the extent that RVF guys are receptive to that information.

I must note that, when it comes to various nutrition-related topics, there is a lot of misinformation out there, and especially in the mainstream propaganda, and I have frequently come across, even RVF guys who seem to be arguing (without much to back it up) regarding some point that the mainstream dogma seems to be propagating yet that kind of information frequently needs to be redirected towards receiving substantiation from better sources, and as far as I can tell, your post seems to be very helpful in regard to pointing us to informative sources in order that we will be better able to come our own conclusions regarding potential health impacts of various sweeteners.

Post: #12

(03-20-2015 05:30 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  Thanks for your information and your links. I am NOT sure if your "you are kidding right" is directed at me, but I would like to say that I was NOT kidding when I made my post. There was NO joking component in that post, and I was just making various layman's comments that were NOT too much disparate from the information that you provided.

You certainly seem much better read than me on this particular topic, so in that regard, I have the sense that your post will be very helpful to RVF guys, to the extent that RVF guys are receptive to that information.

I must note that, when it comes to various nutrition-related topics, there is a lot of misinformation out there, and especially in the mainstream propaganda, and I have frequently come across, even RVF guys who seem to be arguing (without much to back it up) regarding some point that the mainstream dogma seems to be propagating yet that kind of information frequently needs to be redirected towards receiving substantiation from better sources, and as far as I can tell, your post seems to be very helpful in regard to pointing us to informative sources in order that we will be better able to come our own conclusions regarding potential health impacts of various sweeteners.

It was more figuratively - nothing malicious meant by me.

Also it is true that you could likely debate those artificial sweeteners as well - there are some less dangerous ones like sorbitol or even white sugar. And I know it's new sometimes - I certainly consumed it freely until a couple of years ago being completely oblivious to their dangers.

Aside from their toxicity they are not even doing the job at calorie prevention either, but that is another matter.

I researched that topic quite well and it was amazing to find out that many conventional MDs know fully well about sweeteners, as in some cases a few people have actually destroyed their health with a high-dosage consumption of those things and thus the culprit can be pinpointed quite easily. Not that it helps much then at healing those diseases - not much can be done afterwards, since it's more like long-term poisoning.

And I know that one could disagree with me on that - so kidding is good-natured here. Sweeteners are one of the less contested things in the "alternative" field actually since even very ingrained mainstream MDs will rather prefer to err on the side of caution than on some essentially useless diet drink - sugar in moderate degrees is certainly known to be fine.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20886530

The funny thing is that there are numerous studies out there and it's still allowed to proceed without any great impediment. I certainly was just as oblivious to it as most of the population only a few years ago blindly trusting government agencies to decide what's safe for consumption for me and my family.

Post: #13

(03-20-2015 07:42 PM)Zelcorpion Wrote:  

(03-20-2015 05:30 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  Thanks for your information and your links. I am NOT sure if your "you are kidding right" is directed at me, but I would like to say that I was NOT kidding when I made my post. There was NO joking component in that post, and I was just making various layman's comments that were NOT too much disparate from the information that you provided.

You certainly seem much better read than me on this particular topic, so in that regard, I have the sense that your post will be very helpful to RVF guys, to the extent that RVF guys are receptive to that information.

I must note that, when it comes to various nutrition-related topics, there is a lot of misinformation out there, and especially in the mainstream propaganda, and I have frequently come across, even RVF guys who seem to be arguing (without much to back it up) regarding some point that the mainstream dogma seems to be propagating yet that kind of information frequently needs to be redirected towards receiving substantiation from better sources, and as far as I can tell, your post seems to be very helpful in regard to pointing us to informative sources in order that we will be better able to come our own conclusions regarding potential health impacts of various sweeteners.

It was more figuratively - nothing malicious meant by me.

Also it is true that you could likely debate those artificial sweeteners as well - there are some less dangerous ones like sorbitol or even white sugar. And I know it's new sometimes - I certainly consumed it freely until a couple of years ago being completely oblivious to their dangers.

Aside from their toxicity they are not even doing the job at calorie prevention either, but that is another matter.

I researched that topic quite well and it was amazing to find out that many conventional MDs know fully well about sweeteners, as in some cases a few people have actually destroyed their health with a high-dosage consumption of those things and thus the culprit can be pinpointed quite easily. Not that it helps much then at healing those diseases - not much can be done afterwards, since it's more like long-term poisoning.

And I know that one could disagree with me on that - so kidding is good-natured here. Sweeteners are one of the less contested things in the "alternative" field actually since even very ingrained mainstream MDs will rather prefer to err on the side of caution than on some essentially useless diet drink - sugar in moderate degrees is certainly known to be fine.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20886530

The funny thing is that there are numerous studies out there and it's still allowed to proceed without any great impediment. I certainly was just as oblivious to it as most of the population only a few years ago blindly trusting government agencies to decide what's safe for consumption for me and my family.

Thanks for your further elaboration, Zelcorpion.

Well, now that you mention the role of doctors and nutrition issues, I would take the stance that generally speaking a large majority of medical doctors are either oblivious to nutritional matters or they are forced into various standards of care recommendations that are dominated by insurance companies, drug companies and the food industry.

In other words, you are usually NOT going to get the truth about nutrition or meaningful preventive measures from your doctor.

Let me just share a fairly short example from my personal history. Currently, I am in my late 40s; however, in my early 40s (so a little more than 4 years ago), various health professionals informed me that I needed to take precautions regarding my diet and my rising cholesterol level. Prior to that I had pretty much been eating whatever I wanted and following a lot of mainstream ideas regarding nutrition (in other words, if the box said that it was healthy, I just went along with it).

In sum, my doctor put me on a statin due to my "high ldl cholesterol, high triglicerides and low HDL) , and I decided to go along with his recommendation, and try out the statin for a while and then in the following months to begin to study into statins and cholesterol etc.

That whole experience opened up my eyes to a lot of amazing nutritional facts, and probably the first 7-8 months or so, I went along with my doctor and attempted to give them the benefit of the doubt and followed a lot of mainstream recommendations. About 6-8 months into the matter, I then began to become more exposed to the low carb and paleo and natural foods literature, and thereafter some of the considerable skepticisms concerning statin drugs.

Within the next 4 months, based on what I was reading, I weaned off of the statin drugs and began to become somewhat combative with my doctor concerning the varying levels of misinformation that he had been providing to me and questions concerning his lack of nutritional knowledge and his following various standards of care... including standards of care that push certain drugs, such as statins.

Actually, it was NOT just one doctor with whom I was arguing, because I had several follow-ups with various doctors through that year, and I quizzed a lot of these various doctors on the topic of nutrition. These doctors are in major research university setting, and in essence, the large majority of the doctors are really hog tied in their obligations to follow the standards of care (which generally contradict good nutrition and/or meaningful preventative measures).

These institutional doctors are fairly hostile to the low carb community, yet in my view the low carb community generally has a lot of the correct answers and sufficient science to back up their various claims (including works through authors like Gary Taubes and Jimmy Moore, and the many doctors that Jimmy Moore interviews through his low carb podcasts).

Anyhow, I am of the belief that many doctors may be well-intentioned in their desires to help patients to become more healthy, yet they are more or less shackled in their nutrition information by their requirements to follow "standards of care." They are bound by various misinformation, even though they are smart people.

Post: #14

Yeah, sucralose is pretty bad for you too.

I'm not on the "artificial sweeteners are 100% death" train.

I'm young, drink a lot of water, and always take my ACV. I don't consume a lot of artificial sweeteners but I think we should all be thinking about it.

I have about 8 lbs of protein (thanks Costco) with sucralose in it. As soon as I'm done with this I'm going to get one without artificial sweeteners. Some actually aren't that expensive -

http://scoobysworkshop.com/top-5-best-protein-powders/

Post: #15

Something not yet mentioned in this thread- a lot of Stevia products are cut with sucralose or other artificial sweeteners!

You need to always read the ingredients. The powdered forms of stevia are nearly always cut with something, as it is so strong in pure form. They "fluff" it up. It is often cut with things like dextrose, maltodextrin or erythritol. Of the three, dextrose is the most acceptable. It is a natural vegetable fiber. The others are artificial. This is speculation, but I suspect artificial sweetener producers have gotten in the stevia business by unloading their crap and mixing in a bit of stevia.

You want non-GMO pure stevia. NuNaturals sells a pure, organic powder. I've used SweetLeaf, which is liquid form and the only other ingredients are water and a bt of alcohol (it's probably an alcohol extract).

Post: #16

I've been drinking tons of diet coke for years, and have started drinking lots of sugar free Rock Star. However, I've recently been trying to minimize artificial sweeteners, including sugar alcohols like sorbitol. From what I've been reading, all of these sweeteners increase insulin resistance, and they also cause bloating.

I've been drinking unsweet tea lately, and I can tell the difference. I still have some artificial sweeteners, but far less than before. When I do have them, I see the return of bloating, and remember to minimize use of them.

Post: #17

(03-20-2015 10:16 PM)redbeard Wrote:  I have about 8 lbs of protein (thanks Costco) with sucralose in it. As soon as I'm done with this I'm going to get one without artificial sweeteners. Some actually aren't that expensive -

http://scoobysworkshop.com/top-5-best-protein-powders/

No - it does not mean that you will die of sweeteners quickly, but since it's poison it will produce the expected "results" depending on the individual immune system.

I would strongly recommend a good independent producer like NOW Foods for sports supplements.

You can buy it often discounted at Swanson, since they not only produce good quality supplements, but also trader other producers' stuff: https://www.swansonvitamins.com/

Albeit not all of their generally traded products are high quality. NOW and Swanson is partly because they are family owned.

When I researched the field I found out that most supplement companies are big pharma owned. Years ago they started up buying small manufacturers, combining them into mostly multi-billion $ enterprises and then giving the population the semblance of competition. Since you can replace many drugs with high-dosage or high-quality supplements but with no side-effects, it's actually a smart move.

@JayJ Yeah - cholesterol is one of those big lies out there. You can go paleo on that or even high-carb vegan - essentially you produce the same results strangely enough. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBi2VABLNb0

This is a debate between Dr. Atkins and Dr. McDougall. Nevermind the interviewer who is obviously pro-vegan.

Long-term I think that the high-carb highly raw vegan diet is probably more healthy, but on the other hand many so-called paleo proponents eat a lot of unprocessed carbs like cooked potatoes, which likely explains why they are way more healthy than the strict proponents of the Atkins diet. But that is another topic and don't want to derail the thread here.

---

On sweeteners it is interesting that I found out recently that they sell sugar mixed with sweeteners (Splenda most often) to baking manufacturers in the wholesale, but also retail. When I saw that I knew that you could literally not trust most sweet bakeries anymore. They don't really have to disclose that nasty ingredient to you as they sell you your cinnabon or bearclaw. Best is to avoid that lot completely. So remember that whenever you read sugar as an ingredient anywhere in the US or even EU, then it might have sucralose in it as well - if it had not crossed a certain line, then that ingredient does not need to be on the label, since it's only a "minor" additive to the sugar.

Those bastards are evil indeed.

Post: #18

How do you use fresh stevia in stuff? How much to get a slight sweetness? Is it as potent as liquid or powdered stevia?

Post: #19

Figured I'd update this since my household is now 100% sucralose free. It still sneaks in my diet when I'm out traveling but it's still much better not having any around.

I'll share the clean supplements I've been taking.

Protein - NOW Chocolate Whey. Tastes more like cocoa instead of chocolate. Delicious. Does not mix as well as other proteins but is still satisfying. I tried TrueProtein's whey but it does not mix well and doesn't taste good either.

Fiber - Nature's Bounty. I take fiber because I eat a low carb diet. Fiber helps me feel full and makes me take solid shits. I used to take VitaFusion fiber dummies as per MikeCF but they have sucralose. The Nature's Bounty ones are tasty and use natural ingredients including chicory which tastes awesome. They are harder, more like gum drops vs. VitaFusion which were like gummy bears, but still awesome to have around especially when traveling.

BCAA - ON Unflavored BCAA. Cheap, reliable, no sweeteners at all. I bought this and could not stand how it tastes with water. I started mixing it with beet juice pre workout and you can't taste the BCAA's at all, so juice + BCAA are great combo. However if I don't want to juice, what do I do? I tried looking for some drinks that had stevia or other sweeteners to mix with the powder but couldn't find a good solution.

So what did I start doing? TEA. If I want caffeine, I will brew a cup of English Breakfast tea. If not, I have a berry tea that I'll heat up. After the tea is made, mix with ice to cool the tea, then mix the BCAA's and some liquid stevia. BOOM. Delicious, cheap, and sucralose-free.

Post: #20

Edit- Not worth it.