Stevia

I had been wanting to try stevia for a while, and when a friend told me last summer that they have Crystal Lite type things with stevia instead of nutrasweet in Walmart, I thought that was my chance. They were Zingers made by Celestial Seasonings and in the tea isle. They are just a little packet to add to water, which I found them really strong and added maybe 3 times more water to them than recommended. I also noticed that they seemed to drop my blood sugar (just judging by how I felt, I didn’t check it), which I’m guessing is because they taste sweet, my body released insulin thinking that they had simple sugar in them. So I just avoided drinking them if I had an empty stomach, it wasn’t anything extreme.

My toddler and hubby like them too. My hubby works construction, and he says that sometimes it’s easier to drink all the water he needs to drink if there’s some flavor to it. So in addition to his 2 gallons of water in a gott-type cooler, I started sending one of those 4-cup or so Gaterade bottles with two Zingers in it.

Since we liked those, we also tried the little ‘sugar’ packets (from Walmart) that were a tiny bit of sugar with sevia to make it sweeter. I use those sometimes in pizza dough rather than honey if we’re out of honey, or in my smoothies if I want them sweeter. They wouldn’t work in cookies, I don’t think, since they don’t have nearly the bulk that sugar does. And I tried them in my coffee once and thought it tasted aweful. I think there are just some things that the flavor is compatable with, and some that it’s not.

I’ve been noticing that our Walmart doesn’t have Zingers any more, I need to see if they were discontinued or if our Walmart just doesn’t carry them.