I don't want to boast, but a couple of times I've noted the upcoming domination of non-caloric stevia.
Stevia is a naturally occurring (at least in Paraguay) herb that's incredibly sweet and may or may not be slightly mutagenic at high doses.
The FDA has been stalling on releasing a report on whether stevia is safe. Yesterday, though, Coca-Cola announced it was releasing a stevia-based drink this week, before the FDA ruling.
Coke is using stevia in its Odwalla line of drinks and fruit smoothies. Don't expect stevia in soft drinks for a while, because it has a slight licorice flavor in natural form -- that licorice flavor gets lost among very sweet fruits but is irksome in highly-tuned-to-taste-like-normal diet drinks. Also, because it's a natural plant, stevia has to be harvested and there may not be enough for the soft drink market.
Where stevia will most likely make the biggest impact is on sales of
Nutrasweet and Splenda. Cargill has a tabletop stevia sweeter called
Truvia.
The marketing campaign started Monday. Truvia's tag is
"Our sweetener is more than just splendid, it's natural." Truvia is
already for sale in organic stores like Whole Foods.
How can
Cargill and Coke start selling their products before FDA approval? It's
because they both claim they're not selling stevia but rebiana. What's
rebiana? It's stevia, but only a small portion of the stevia plant. The
two companies have set up a joint Web site, All About Rebiana, to address the safety issues.
Pepsi
is still waiting for that pesky FDA approval, but it has some stevia
products ready to go in its Sobe line. With backers like Pepsi, Coke
and Cargill, stevia is on its way to becoming the number-one sweetener
in America -- a position its held in Japan for three decades. -- Owen Morris
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