Natural, Healthy and Sweet - The Benefits of Stevia

Stevia (STEE-vee-uh) is an outstanding, sweet tasting herb that has remarkable health promoting qualities. The sweetness of Stevia is largely due to its complex stevioside molecule that is composed of glucose, sophorose and steviol. A second compound called rebaudioside, which is present in Stevia, also contributes to Stevia's sweetness. Stevia has a taste that is unique and has been described as very sweet with a slight licorice, almost bitter aftertaste. Generally, high quality Stevia contains very little of this bitterness. The sweetness of Stevia is much different than the sweetness of other natural sweeteners, sugar, or artificial sweeteners, but it is delicious. For some people the taste may require some "getting used to," but most people quickly develop a taste for it.

Stevia is a South American shrub whose leaves have been used for centuries by native peoples in Paraguay and Brazil to sweeten their yerba mate and other stimulant beverages. The stevia plant belongs to the Compositae (sunflower family of plants). Centuries ago, Natives of Paraguay used the leaves of this small, herbaceous, semi-bushy, perennial shrub to sweeten their bitter drinks. Originating in the South American wild, it could be found growing in semi-arid habitat ranging from grassland to scrub forest to mountain terrain. The plant made its way to Pacific Rim countries where in recent decades it became cultivated domestically, used in its raw leaf form and now is commercially processed into sweetener.

If you've ever tasted stevia, you know it's extremely sweet. In fact, this remarkable noncaloric herb, native to Paraguay, has been used as a sweetener and flavor enhancer for centuries. Stevia is a natural, non-caloric, sweet-tasting plant used around the world for its pleasant taste, as well as for its increasingly researched potential for inhibiting fat absorption and lowering blood pressure.

Stevia is about 300 times sweeter than sugar in its natural state, and much more so when processed. Its medicinal uses include regulating blood sugar, preventing hypertension, treatment of skin disorders, and prevention of tooth decay. Other studies show that it is a natural antibacterial and antiviral agent as well. Stevia is actually good for you! On top of that, it is calorie and carbohydrate free. Stevia is a great sweetener choice for diabetics, those watching their weight, and anyone interested in maintaining their health.

Topically, Stevia has excellent healing capabilities. If placed on a cut or scrape, it stings initially followed by a significant reduction in pain and accelerated healing with no scarring. Whole leaf Stevia extract can be used as a facial mask by smoothing the dark liquid over the entire face, allowing it to dry for 30-60 minutes, then rinsing. This will help tighten the skin, smooth out wrinkles and heal skin blemishes and acne. This has been reported to be effective when used on seborrhea, dermatitis and eczema, as well. Stevia is also beneficial for the hair and scalp; good results have been obtained by adding Stevia concentrate to shampoo, and also applying concentrate to the hair after shampooing, allowing it to remain on the hair for a few minutes, then rinsing.

Stevia is also able to perform a number of other beneficial tasks. For example, it has been shown that Stevia may enhance moods and increase energy levels and mental alertness. What's more, it is also been shown to stop the growth of bacteria in the mouth is responsible for the production of acids that are responsible for gingivitis and cavities.

In recent years, Stevia has made its way to the Far East. In the 70's and 80's Stevia was developed as a sweetener/flavour enhancer which has since been used widely for this purpose in Japan, China, Korea, Israel, Brazil and Paraguay. It has been embraced in Japan, where it's used in soy sauce, sweet pickles and soft drinks. In Japan, Diet Coke has been sweetened with Stevia.

The products in which Stevia has been used include soft drink, ice cream, cookies, pickles, chewing gum, tea and skin care products. In Japan about 40% of the sweetener market is stevia-based. The main producers of stevia are Japan, China, Taiwan, Thailand, Korea, Brazil, Malaysia and Paraguay.

The cosmetic industry also employs the use of Stevia in many of the available skin care products. It has been shown to reduce skin blemishes when applied topically. Stevia also relieves stomach discomfort.

There are no symptoms of deficiency but everyone can benefit from the use of Stevia. Populations that may benefit from the use of Stevia include: diabetics, the obese, the elderly, children, and athletes.

Diabetics, individuals with blood sugar problems, or the obese, may benefit from supplementing with Stevia due to its ability to regulate blood sugar.

Individuals suffering from hypertension may also benefit from the use of Stevia. It has been shown that in cases of high blood pressure Stevia has the ability to act as a vasodiolator, thus helping to lower hypertension.

In the late 1980s an "anonymous firm" lodged a "trade complaint" with the FDA about Stevia when it started to surface in the United States. One company using stevia was the Celestial Seasonings herbal tea company. They were ordered by the FDA to stop producing tea "adulterated" with Stevia. Traditional Medicinals, another tea company, had their inventory of Stevia teas confiscated during an unexpected FDA raid and were told the tea would be burned.

Why did the government treat Stevia like a controlled substance? FDA documents call Stevia a "dangerous food additive" even though the safety of Stevia has been widely tested for many years by scientists in Japan. The FDA will not reveal who made the "trade complaint" (despite the Freedom of Information Act) though many suspect that it was the makers of the artificial sweetener Aspartame (aka "Nutrasweet") trying to fend off competition, as the artificial sweetener is very profitable.

To judge from the extensive measures the FDA has employed to keep Americans in the dark about Stevia, one might assume it was some type of dangerous narcotic. But, in fact, no ill effects have ever been attributed to it, although it has been used by millions of people around the world, in some locales for hundreds of years.

So adamant has the FDA remained on the subject, that even though Stevia can now be legally marketed as a dietary supplement under legislation enacted in 1994, any mention of its possible use as a sweetener or tea is still strictly prohibited.

In 1995 the FDA reversed their decision to ban Stevia, but only halfway. Stevia can now be sold as a "nutritional supplement" but not as a sweetener in the United States. This is also the case in the European Union, and the World Health Organization is pressuring other countries to follow suit.

Benefits
• non-caloric sweetener
• inhibits fat absorption and lowers blood pressure
• regulates blood sugar levels

Chester is a health nutrition consultant and is the owner of www.AstroNutrition.com - a provider of premium health nutrition and sports supplements.

Related Information of Interest:

Celebrity Gossip – Good Or Bad?
People know more about Paris Hilton, than they do President Bush. Celebrities are always in the news for a variety of different reasons. They might be getting drunk, and making a fool out of themselves (Mel Gibson), or getting a divorce (Carmen Electra and Dave Navarro), or almost dropping their baby in the street (Britney Spears). Whatever they are doing, we are all tuned to watch, and listen to the celebrity gossip.

Most of the time the only celebrity gossip that appears on television concerns something bad that has happened, or some mistake a celebrity has made. The public likes to watch figures in the spotlight fall on their face, because it brings them back down to earth with the rest of us. Also it seems that we like to give air time to celebrities so they can complain about the way the government is being run. We can setup a large forum to let celebrities speak about how the war in Iraq is wrong, but we can not take five minutes to tell the soldiers that are fighting there how much we appreciate them for what they are doing. I would like to help change the view about celebrities and write about some celebrity gossip of a different flavor.

Towards the beginning of the war in Iraq, Densel Washington made a trip to a hospital in Fort Sam Houston, Texas to see some of the injured soldiers. While he was there he saw that the hospital was crowded and the doctors there needed more supplies. Densel told the soldiers at the hospital that help would be on the way. About six months later, he gave a sizable donation to the Fisher House Foundation Inc., which helps families of hospitalized military personnel. I never heard any gossip about this on the celebrity news channels. The only time I heard about this great act of generosity was in an email from someone else that was trying to spread the good word. I think we would all feel a little bit better about celebrities if the celebrity gossip shows would try to report on more uplifting stories like this one.

Decide for yourself! Check out the celebrity gossip forum.

The Easy Way to Define Poetry...
Poetry is a form of expression. Whether it is spoken or written, it is the manifestation of thoughts, feelings, and intellect. It is a way of communicating. With poetry one can effectively communicate opinion, desire, ideas, cleverness, and most of all state of mind. Although poetry is a supreme form of expression, it is not the most efficient form of expression. It is subject to the reader's or listener's interpretation. A poet may want to express certain notions but the interpretive elements of poetry can sometimes keep the meaning of a poem from being clearly articulated. We all see and feel things differently.

Most poets want to evoke emotion in the reader or listener. They'll often use rhythm and rhyme with a swarm of other literary devices to create such an effect. Poetry is like music! Actually, one could reason that poetry is music. It is the art of arranging sound to create a thought-provoking effect.

Therefore, poetry is also defined as literature that focuses on the aesthetic beauty of words and sound. It is artistic writing in metrical form. It takes skill and technique to produce this art-an art that seems to define itself as its definitions come across as being somewhat poetic.

Poetry is the science of versification. It is creative expression at its finest, which is why sharing, writing, or reciting poetry can be a deeply personal experience. It is truly an art form.

BlackIsrael The Poet BlackIsrael

Online degrees - specially suited to adults looking to improve their employment prospects
No longer is a university degree only available by physically attending university lectures, seminars and tutorials. Now you can work for your degree 100% online, never setting foot into the hallowed halls of learning unless you choose to.

There are universities that offer Bachelors and Masters degrees online. You can even get a Doctorate 100% online. You have a very wide choice of subject, as wide as if you physically attended the institution.

The online degree has the advantage that you can work at it in between your parenting or other commitments. You can keep up the day job, while studying for your degree in the evenings or at weekends. This option is a really attractive one for adults looking to increase their long-term employment options.

You can get an Online degree from many traditional universities, including Harvard and Yale. There are other universities and colleges that only have online courses. Some of these universities are accredited universities, others are not.

If you apply to a non-accredited institution future employers are unlikely to look favorably on your qualification. This is because some of these non-accredited "universities" are nothing more than printing shops, churning out degrees as the cheques roll in. Everyone has seen the ads for these so-called degrees - "The Get your doctorate next week" type ads.

There have been cases of prominent scientists losing their posts because their degree was exposed to come from one of these non-accredited institutions that produce totally worthless degrees and doctorates.

There are "Life-Experience" degrees where you gain credit for what you have learned in your job over the years, including for experience gained by staying at home and looking after the kids. Treat these especially with extreme caution and don't shell out your money too easily. If it's that easy to get a degree then it really is not worth the paper it is printed on.

The author is an ex-teacher who now makes a living helping people to decide about their broad educational objectives. He has a website that has more details of some of the available options.

Repairing a damaged CD
Why compact discs get damaged. Compact discs are all plastic. Compact discs are even not sensitive to magnetic fields as in case floppy disks, which never used to retain data when even a slight magnetic field is crossed with floppies. Then what is the reason why CDs get corrupted?

CDs work on the principle of reflection of light. CD drives have a built in laser that is used to read data. When laser is focused on to the CD the beam get reflected to a point when there is some data on that are i.e. 0 or 1 the points where light beam lands back is different which symbolizes the bit value.

When something on the CD breaks the path of the laser light, something like dust particle or something else like a FINGER PRINT!!!. Finger prints are nothing but natural oil from skin that sticks to the surface in contact with the skin in a pattern of skin cells. This oil or say fingerprint helps in refraction of light and loss of data to the reading source i.e. laser.

When CDs don't run the reason is because something is interrupting the laser to read the shinny side of the CD. But I have important data what should I do now?

Most of the times it is because of dust or fingerprints, you need to clean the CD.
You can clean your CDs with plain water or a bit soapy water. And it is better to clean the CDs after some time. But this doesn't mean you should start putting your CDs in dishwasher or washing machine every week.

All you need to do is to wipe the shinny side of the CD with a clean moist cloth and try running it again make sure the CD is dry before you run it.

People say about using all different sorts of things to clean CDs like toothpastes, wax polish etc. but I would recommend you to buy some CD cleaning kit. But if you still want to go try, do let me know the results.

And one thing I must add is that DVD work on the same principle and are bit more sensitive to dust and fingerprints. You can also use the above mentioned procedure for DVDs. But you need to be careful with DVDs.

Edgar Lee is a VOIP consultant in VOIP singapore (www.voip.com.sg). A Singapore company that has extensive experiences in cutting-edge IT solutions, VOIP singapore is your trusted partner when your organization needs VoIP, IP PA System, Systems Integration.