Stevia: the New Artificial Sweetener of Choice?

Finding an artificial sweetener that will adequately replicate the flavor of sugar has been a holy grail in food ingredients of sorts for the last 25 years.

The original sweetener of choice was Sweet n' Low, or saccharin, created in 1879 and featuring a sweetness that is from 300 to 500 times more powerful than that of sugar. Diabetics and those avoiding sugar for other reasons rejoiced that everything from ice cream to soda to cookies became available to them again thanks to saccharin.

The next big contender was aspartame, also known as Equal. It's 200 times as sweet as table sugar, and was discovered in 1965. It's never fared as well in baked goods, but many people prefer the flavor of aspartame for their beverages.

And fairly recently Splenda--formally known as Sucralose--hit the market. This artificial sweetener is heat stable, meaning that it makes many baked goods taste just as sweet as sugar. In most cases regular sugar is also added to the mix in order to facilitate the chemical reactions needed in baking, but for the most part Splenda has been the new darling of the artificial sweeteners craze.

But it appears that stevia may soon take its place--at least in some capacity. Stevia is actually a plant derivative cultivated in Paraguay, Brazil, Japan, and China. Previous criticisms of artificial sweeteners revolved around their "unnaturalness" as chemically created compounds. Being of a "natural" source, stevia is touted as a healthy alternative to artificial sweeteners that still supplies the sweetness of sugar.

And now recent sweetener taste tests find that stevia fares best when combined with another favorite - chocolate. Stevia flavored chocolate beverages were judged to be the best because it tasted well, was moderately sweet, and provided a well-balanced flavor.

Food manufacturers and distributors may soon find that their chocolate products will fare well with stevia. It's sweet, it's calorie free, and it maintains the best chocolate flavor. However, they'll have to get in line behind Coca Cola and PepsiCo, both of whom have already designed beverage lines featuring stevia and hitting the shelves already.