Ask Dave: TRUVIA; Is It True?

Dear Dave,

 I am new to Genesis Transformation and have been making many changes in my pantry.  I just bought a box of Truvia to replace table sugar but my coach is concerned that this is not a good alternative.  Is Truvia a safe product or do you suggest another?

Sally, Chicago

Dear Sally,

I personally do not suggest using highly processed foods of any kind; Truvia fits this description.  Truvia’s advertising leads you to believe that it is pure as the driven snow – here’s a quote from their website:

“Water, sunshine and Earth’s nutrients. Three crucial ingredients to cultivating the stevia plant. The building blocks of our zero-calorie sweetener.”

What they fail to mention are the ‘building blocks’ of the #1 ingredient:  Erythritol.

Erythritol is a ‘fermented sugar alcohol,’  which means it is somewhere in between sugar and alcohol.  While it is a naturally occurring substance it is produced on a massive scale; not harvested from fruits and berries.  Cargill makes Truvia.  They are one of the largest companies in the world and have a HUGE hand in global corn production.  The Truvia website lists all the fruits and wonderful places where erythritol occurs but doesn’t say where they get it.  Cargills website says it is “Based on corn and sugar derivatives.’

 Remember:  Corn is king of the cash crops – it is widely abundant, cheap, and easy to synthesize into a myriad of HIGHLY PROCESSED ingredients.  (think HFCS!!!)

Stevia is a wonderful plant; about 300 times sweeter than sugar.  There are more sweeteners being developed using this plant and some BIG corporations are starting to notice.  The second ingredient in Truvia is called Rebiana.  This is a highly processed extract of Stevia trademarked by a partnership between Coca-Cola and Cargill.

Remember how artificial sweeteners were at first thought to be a dietary miracle?  Splenda, Sweet-N-Low, Equal, NutraSweet – they gained huge market share until people noticed side effects – and were not able to lose fat.  Now companies are using what they claim to be ‘all natural building blocks’ but they are building processed food.  Period.

I do recommend other forms of Stevia like the extracts made by SweetLeaf.  They offer a liquid and a powdered stevia sweetener which is far less processed than Truvia or another similar product: PureVia.

Unless you are using the stevia leaf itself (which is available in a growing number of health-food stores!) please research your sweetener – If it has unfamiliar ingredients it is your responsibility to learn more before putting it in your mouth.

If it’s too sweet to be true – it isn’t!

Dave