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In my efforts to find a practical alternative to sugar, saccharine, the dreaded sugar by products that are reportedly so bad for us I have researched and tried Stevia. I figured any all natural alternative to refined sugar products had to be better than the processed sugar cane or sugar beets for my health, and economically speaking any alternative to buying store bought products is preferable! Stevia, I found to be too unstable to be considered a substitute for sugar in drinks such as lemonade, coffee or tea when it is grown randomly, meaning that you are buying stevia online from various individuals. If you grow it in your backyard or inside your greenhouse and get to know your 'plant' and it's level of sweetness, then it is a potential substitute for sugar in liquid recipes because you can learn to measure or gauge the amount to use based on experience.. I will attempt to grow Stevia again next year. For me this year the growing season is over..... and Stevia is a native plant of South America so requires more 'heat and humidity, not to mention a longer growing season" than my Carolina summer give it. It would work well in instances where not a lot of sugar is required, and where the addition of Stevia could be individually controlled as in teas or drinks, but the fact that it is unstable still does not lend to using it on a regular basis untill you know your plant. This article assumes that you are planning on growing your own. I'm not sure of the cost of purchasing Stevia commercially, as that is not how we live. We avoid the purchase of commercial goods in most instances and only buy what we can not grow or make.. Guess work is required with each batch of Stevia purchased from 'individuals', since the sweetness varies with the location and conditions in which it grows. As far as growing it, I had no luck in keeping it growing in my North Carolina environment outside. As for growing it in a pot inside that might have worked better for me and is not something I tried since I decided that keeping or using it as a part of my regular diet was not something I was interested in for myself. The alternatives to sugar don't bake up properly. None of them work as a substitute for White Refined Sugar products in cooking as we know it. Then there are the taste and texture differences that using sugar substitutes give foods that I personally don't like. There are however, special recipes for using the alternative sugars including Stevia. You should not consider substituting any of the sugar alternatives in your current recipes and expect the results to be the same. If you do you will be disappointed. Substitutions change the texture, sometimes color and flavor of baked goods. If you are open to change and don't mind experimenting, then you may find that your opinion of these products differs from mine. Some of the alternative recipes were not bad, but they are not the same as what we are used too. Me, I like what I like and resist change! Especially in my diet. I was raised on a country diet of beans, homemade biscuits, veggies from the garden and deer meat, fish and preserved foods from the garden in the winter. Coffee, oh how I do love my coffee!! After 46 years of a diet rich in southern tradition, I'm not willing to give up my pork, bacon, country or salt ham, fatback, lard, homemade biscuits or gravy regardless of the health consequences! Instead again, we limit our intake of these items, prepare them healthier, without sacrificing quality, taste or tradition. For us the logical answer has not been to replace refined white sugar with a substitute but to simply continue to apply our theory of moderation in life.
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