On Wed, 5 Jan 2000, matesz wrote:

> Btw, stevia does not have side effects; it is an herb!

There are plenty of herbs that have side-effects.  I intend this
not as a reason not to use stevia (which I haven't tried) but
only to correct the notion that because something is an herb we
can't harm ourselves with it.

> Sure, fruit is sweet and so are many vegetables, once your taste buds are
> awakened, but..... with all of the foods people let go of when they change
> to this way of eating, a little stevia or dried, powdered, kiwi sweetener in
> this context, is not that big a deal and I can't see the harm of it!  It's
> splitting hairs!

It's interesting that as a general thing I don't have much of a
sweet tooth.  If I attempt something like a zero-carb diet for
very long, I will begin to experience cravings (much as
Stefansson described his men at sea fantasizing about foods), but
I have found that these can be allayed by even small amounts of
sweet fruit, such as 5 grapes at the end of a meal.  As
"desserts" go this is pretty minimal, but it seems to be enough
to quiet that craving.  I often use grapes because each
medium-sized grape equals about one carb gram, so it's easy to
track my carb intake.  I have learned that if I want to lose
weight, I need to monitor carbs and calories, even on paleo.

> Divide the # of calories by 4 and you get a figure which is the number of
> grams of carbs.

Should be 4.5 calories per gram of digestible carb or protein,
and twice that for fat.

> As for the naysayers--- they can skip the stevia sweetened
> lemonaide, limeaide,

Yes, I have to try some of this.  I used to enjoy fresh lemonade,
and it could be the best alternative for my kids.  Thanks for the
idea.

Todd Moody
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