Of all of nature's gifts, the sweetest by far must be stevia (Stevia Rebaudiana). For nearly 25 years, stevia has been an approved food additive and widely available in China, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and Malaysia where it is used to sweeten candies, soft drinks, toothpaste and ice cream. A perennial shrub belonging to the aster family and native to Brazil and Paraguay, this herb has been used to sweeten beverages by the Guarani Tribe since pre-Columbian times. But, stevia has not been ignored by the U.S. by any means. In fact, there is a great deal of controversy surrounding this herb, and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in its all-too-often role of political puppeteer, is still tugging at the strings.
The "stevia drama" began to unfold on a warm summer day in 1991. An Arlington, Texas stevia distributor was confronted by federal marshals armed with a warrant to seize his most recent shipment from South America. What was the offending cargo? A fresh batch of stevia leaves. Earlier that year, the FDA imposed a ban on the import of stevia into the U.S. based on a series of studies conducted at the University of Illinois, where Steviol, a metabolite of steviosides, was declared to be mutagenic towards a particular strain of Salmonella bacteria. A few years later, the University of Sussex in Brighton pointed out numerous inconsistencies with the studies and challenged its findings. Nevertheless, the FDA felt it had sufficient evidence to impose the ban. Yet, the same agency has had some difficulty in producing evidence to counter allegations that, in the words of Arizona congressman Jon Kyl, the ban wasn't, "a restraint of trade to benefit the artificial sweetener industry."
Several U.S. tea companies were using stevia as a "natural flavoring" in their products prior to the 1991 embargo. According to Rob McCaleb, president and founder of the herb Research Foundation, the FDA launched its seek and seize campaign when a trade complaint was registered in the mid-1908's by a company "with a strong interest in not having sweet natural products on the market." Although the FDA's Office of Premarket Approval doesn't deny this document exists, it maintains that "we cannot locate one in this office." Furthermore, since the FDA recognizes a food additive as being GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe) if used in food prior to 1958, the U.S. tea companies teamed with the American Herbal Products Association (AHPA) to obtain GRAS status for stevia based on its safe use for centuries world-wide.
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