So, as usual, I fell off the no sugar wagon and hit the wall hard. My son’s birthday was a low point. We had to eat the leftover cake and homemade buttercream frosting (read loads of powdered sugar and butter whipped into submission), right? Wrong. Ugh. Started having trouble waking up in the morning and falling asleep at my computer in the late afternoon. So I started on Sunday to be good again, by throwing out all leftover sweets and when I went grocery shopping I didn’t bring a single sweet item into the house (well, there is the Stevia!) It’s been a tough week so far (I also halted my caffeine addiction at the same time.UGH.) But overall I am surviving by drinking loads of water, sparkling water and herbal tea sweetened with 5 drops of vanilla stevia (liquid form), eating fresh fruits, veggies and whole grains and last night when I really wanted a treat I made homemade tortilla chips (the warm, crunchy with just a dash of salt helped but did not stave off the chocolate cravings.) I drank another glass of vanilla Stevia water and went to bed, hoping for less of a struggle today. We’ll see…wish me luck! I’m gonna try and make it to Sunday and then I think may try making oatmeal choco-chip cookies with agave nectar instead of sugar. We’ll see if it works. If they turn out yummy, I’ll send the recipe. Thanks for having a place I can chat about the challenge of it all.

You can do it. You are doing it! Try baking with Stevia instead of Agave. I don’t like Agave anymore and had a much better time with Stevia for baking.

Really, all the Stevia cookbooks advise against it- say it turns bitter. What happens with agave?

We’ve used Truvia (which has sugar alcohols) and it worked well for baking. Haven’t baked with Agave but I get reactions to it. It’s still very processed and claims to be natural.

Oh, yeah Truvia is made for baking, it’s a more refined version, not just Stevia (hence the sugar alcohols). It depends on the brand and style of Agave nectar you get. Organic Blue Agave (as opposed to others like Maguay) comes in two styles—light which is heated less and filtered more and dark which is filtered less and heated more (though blue agave in general is regarded as a raw food, even by those in the raw food movement because the heat used is so low. It’s basically a fructose (like from apples and other fruit) but has a lower glycemic index.

I love Stevia but won’t wander into the Truvia stomping grounds because it’s part of the big Con-Agri Cargill giants (owner of Coca Cola—who is also the biggest producer of HFCS and they never do anything good for the world. (BTW PureVia is Pepsi’s refined version of the stuff.) For years these folks fought to keep Stevia (the natural powdered green stuff) off the grocery store shelves and the FDA labeled it a supplement instead of an alternative sweetener because the big boys were lobbying to keep it out—the reason? They couldn’t patent it. Seems Coca Cola found a way around that by refining the heck out of it. The only clinical trials done on Truvia were commissioned by Coca Cola and only watched over the course of a few months. We don’t know the long-term effects of this processing (which is chemical) and pairing with the sugar alcohol.  Just like with Splenda (sucralose) remember they said it was natural, made from sugar. Now, the truth comes out—cancer and other health issues being found due to dioxins because Splenda has chlorine in it

Not trying to get all preachy here, for sure. I just know that it helps when someone gives the info you may not have found on your own. 

Plus, when you use pure Stevia you get the added benefits of it helping not only to curb sugar cravings but actually heal the damage done to your body by sugar

You’re not being preachy. It’s easier to avoid sweeteners altogether than it is to avoid Cargill. With several large Stevia suppliers receiving GRAS status recently we’re going to see more and more hybrid Stevia-sweetened foods in the next few years. No matter what, I’m still off Agave. It makes me nutty!

HA! I feel ya.