A Sislo Two-fer

Lynn Sislo, always a fountain of interesting stuff, has a couple items especially worth notice: first, her thoughts on photographing sunsets, enhanced by one taken by her own hand.

Secondly, she mentions a natural sweetener called "Stevia", which is an herb-based "sweetener", although the FDA has not cleared Stevia for use in the United States specifically as a sweetener. Instead, the government requires that Stevia be labeled in products as a "dietary supplement". Lynn is, shall we say, a tad irritated that the government has not cleared a product that would be wondrous for diabetics and others concerned with sugar intake. Now, I'd never heard of Stevia before yesterday, but I did turn up some more information on it.

1. Here is one doctor's very short answer to "Is Stevia safe?", which includes a link to a PDF of a European study that did not conclude favorably (although it did not conclude specifically negatively, either).

2. Here is an article by a University of Illinois nutrition educator which partially explains how Stevia's current regulatory status works. (It's not all the FDA's fault -- part of it specifically deals with the laws governing food ingredients versus nutritional supplements.)

3. The Center for Science in the Public Interest (the folks behind all those exposes of the fat content of Italian food, movie theater popcorn, et cetera in the 1990s) has taken a position against Stevia. (Although the CSPI is not without its own detractors.)

4. The FDA is not alone. Neither Canada nor the United Kingdom has approved the use of Stevia as a sweetener, and the World Health Organization "could not quantify an Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) because of inadequate data on the composition and safety of stevioside".

Maybe Stevia is perfectly safe, but it seems to me that skepticism might still be warranted.