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  • Home
    • Disclosure Policy
    • About Me
  • What's New! (Blog)
  • Low-Carb Lifestyle!
    • Trim Healthy Mama-inspired Grocery Lists
    • THM-style Beverages >
      • Mock Starbucks Mocha Frappuccinos
    • Family Favorite Recipes (Not Low Carb) >
      • Snacks >
        • Delicious Homemade Gooey Granola Bars!
        • Healthy Peanut Buttery Treats
      • Soups and Stews >
        • Jamaican Seafood Chowder
        • Chicken and Gnocchi Soup
      • Salads >
        • Red Cabbage Coleslaw
      • Main Dishes >
        • Beef >
          • Beef Stroganoff
        • Chicken >
          • Chicken Fiesta
          • Chicken Nachos
          • Marinated Zucchini and Chicken Sandwiches
          • Chicken or Turkey Enchiladas
          • Hungarian Chicken Paprikash
          • Green Chili Chicken Lasagna
        • Lamb >
          • Slow-Roasted Lamb Shoulder
        • Seafood >
          • Chilled Quinoa and Salmon Salad (E)
          • Shrimp and Zucchini Tostadas
        • Pasta Recipes >
          • Baked Lemon Pasta
          • Paccheri (Pasta) with Cauliflower and Tomatoes
      • Desserts >
        • Cookies >
          • Free Christmas Cookie cookbook download!
          • Healthier Gingerbread Man Cookies
          • Healthier Holiday Cut-Out Cookes
          • Maple Leaf Cookies - YUMMM!
        • Donuts
        • Frozen Desserts >
          • Lemonade Ice Cream Pie
    • Recommended Ingredients and Foods >
      • Inspiration Mixes - Gluten/Dairy/Caseine/Wheat Free and delicious!
      • Organic Maple Syrup
  • Homeschooling
    • Homeschool Curriculum & Product Reviews >
      • Homeschool Curriculum Reviews >
        • Art >
          • ARTistic Pursuits
          • Simply Draw!
        • Grammar >
          • All About Homophones - (Marie Rippel)
          • Time 4 Learning
          • Daily Grams
        • Handwriting >
          • Cursive Handwriting - New American Cursive
        • History >
          • The Mystery of History >
            • MOH vol. 3 Audio MP3's
          • Tapestry of Grace History
          • U.S. History >
            • America, The Last Best Hope (William Bennett)
          • Winter Promise
        • Latin >
          • Latina Christiana, by Memoria Press
          • Visual Latin
        • Literature-based Unit Studies >
          • Beyond Five in a Row
          • Further Up and Further In by Diane Pendergraft
        • Logic and Reasoning >
          • Building Thinking Skills (Critical Thinking Skills Co.)
        • Math >
          • Math Mammoth
          • Math Tutor DVD.com
          • MathRider: Horselovers' Math Facts Software Game!
        • Music and Composers
        • Online Educational Courses >
          • Aleks Online Courses
        • Science >
          • Apologia Science >
            • Apologia Science's Notebooking Journals
            • Zoology 1 - Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day
          • Science Weekly newsletters
        • Spelling >
          • Phonetic Zoo (by IEW)
        • Writing >
          • The Write Foundation: Level 2 - Paragraphs
          • WriteShop's StoryBuilders
      • Homeschool Product Reviews >
        • eBooks >
          • College Success Begins at Home (TOS eBook)
          • Dreams and Designs—Homemade Supplies to Complement Your Homeschool
          • Help, Lord, I'm Getting Ready to Start Homeschooling My High Schooler!
          • The 2010 Schoolhouse Planner
        • Online Educational Website Memberships >
          • KB Teacher
        • Science >
          • Polymer Crystals
    • Driver's Education for Homeschoolers
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      • Latin >
        • Christmas Songs in Latin
        • Latina Christiana (Level 1) >
          • Latina Christiana Level 1 Lesson Links >
            • Charts and Helps
            • Year One Sayings
            • LC1 Intro and Lesson 1
      • Latina Christiana (Level II) >
        • Latina Christiana Level 2
        • LC2 Intro and Lesson 1
    • Forms and Charts >
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      • 2012-2013 Homeschool Attendance Form
      • 2012-2013 Homeschool Attendance Form
    • Free Audio Books to Download
    • Free Homeschool I.D. Cards!
    • Government and Civics
    • Handwriting
    • History: Classical / Chronological >
      • The Mystery of History, by Linda Lacour Hobar
      • The Middle Ages (MOH vol. 2)
      • Ancient History (MOH vol. 1) >
        • Ancient Rome >
          • Roman Architecture
          • Roman Houses
          • Roman Town (software game by Dig-It)
          • Roman Trade and Commerce
    • Language Arts
    • Science
  • Free Printables
    • Holidays >
      • Christmas
  • Book/DVD/Audio Reviews
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  • Home & Family
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    • Gardening and Herbs
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    • Life at Home
    • Godly Kids & Teens >
      • Godly Womanhood
      • Sharing God With Your Children
      • Training Our Daughters to be Keepers at Home >
        • Keepers At Home - "Beginning of Club Year" Helps
        • Keepers At Home - "End of Club Year" Helps
        • KAH Skills >
          • Bible Memory >
            • Memorizing New Testament Books and Their Meanings
            • Proverbs 31:10-31
          • Cake Decorating
          • Card Making >
            • Stitched Cards
          • Computers
          • Character Studies >
            • Contentment and "I'm Bored" phrases
            • Willingness
          • Decoupage
          • Hospitality
          • Library Skills and Literature Pins
          • Sewing >
            • Beauty and the Pig - Goldie Doll
            • Edwardian-Style Aprons
            • Paper Piecing
      • Children >
        • Bible Study Bookmarks
        • The Church History ABCs (for kids!!!)
        • The Lord's Prayer - copywork
        • Some Thoughts...Family Bible Time
        • Running Away...with permission
      • Young Adults (Teens) >
        • Stepping Heavenward, by Elizabeth Prentiss
        • Deeper Roots: Discovering Our Amazing God
  • Frugal Family Trips to Washington, D.C.
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Why this stevia-hater now loves it!

5/28/2013

8 Comments

 
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This blog post contains affiliate links.
NOTE:  Be sure to read the update toward the bottom of this page!

    I'm pre-diabetic.  I've known this for about two years now.

    I was addicted to sugar - so I faithfully took the medication my doctor ordered, but continued to eat some sugary foods and lots of carbs.  I showed a bit more restraint than in the past, but not much.

    In mid-January, the Lord convicted me - hard - that I was not only poisoning my body, but abusing it.

    Thus began the journey of learning to live mostly without sugar.  To eat meals in specific ways so that the carbs wouldn't collide with the fats, which would cause more weight gain.

    Easy to give up sweets and homemade pasta?
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    How about organic maple syrup?  Or raw honey?

    Um, no.  Especially when I started using stevia to sweeten desserts and treats in our home.  Ick.

    But the Lord works in mysterious ways.  In November and December 2012, a couple of months before switching to this new eating lifestyle, I won two - yes, that's TWO! - blog giveaways for NuNaturals Stevia products.  I didn't even know about the new Trim Healthy Mama book at the time.

    I couldn't believe it!  Wow.  Two giveaways?  You've got to be kidding.  In mid-December, I learned about Trim Healthy Mama, the type of lifestyle eating I'll do for the rest of my life.  The timing was perfect, and definitely God-ordained.

    Unfortunately, I greatly disliked the taste of stevia when we first started THM. I was pretty much a downer about it. Shame on me. 

    And when the only thing I knew how to use to safely sweeten my foods was stevia, I was pretty upset about it.  I mean, I wanted to have my cake and eat it, too! 

    (Whatever that weird phrase means.)

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See update, below, on the change in formulation of the NuNaturals NuStevia Pure White Stevia Extract. :(

    The #1 problem was that our family was so used to eating foods which were very sweet.  And we loved chocolate.  Well, I now know that chocolate is the most difficult ingredient to sweeten with stevia!  But I just didn't know that at first.

     The other problem was that I was using too many holes opened in the NuNaturals Pure Stevia Extract lid.  (The shaker container has several different sizes of holes to use.)  


    For each shake, I was putting far too much stevia extract into the food or beverage, which would leave it with a bitter aftertaste.

    Blech!

   Thankfully, one of the women on the Trim Healthy Mama Facebook page mentioned that we should be having only 2-3 of the smallest holes opened in the lid when shaking it into foods.  That started working a lot better for us!

    In addition, we began to need things less sweet since we weren't stuffing our faces with sugary foods anymore.  Less sweet meant less stevia in the foods/beverages, which made them taste even better!

    I'd say that if you have truly given NuNaturals Pure Stevia Extract a solid go over a period of a few months, and you still find that you really dislike it, switch to using erythritol. The chance of tummy/intestinal upset is minimal, and it tastes sweeter. It will have a kind of "cooling" effect to the taste, but if you can combine erythritol in a clean coffee grinder along with the NuStevia Pure Extract Powder, in the right amounts, I think you'll begin to feel differently about stevia and alternative sweeteners that are healthy for us.


    Xylitol is another healthy sweetener.  I know of dentists who recommend their patients use some xylitol every day for optimum tooth health.  The downside to xylitol is that even the smallest amount of a food containing xylitol is deadly to dogs.  Also, many people have intestinal upset from xylitol and can't tolerate it.  That's me and my family; we tried xylitol in small amounts over about six months' time, and finally gave up on it because our gut just couldn't get used to it.  Even if we had been able to adjust to xylitol, our guests visiting us for meals and snacks would have had problems with it, so we no longer use xylitol.

    I've had a few people mention to me that they don't feel comfortable with using stevia (an herb extract) or erythritol or xylitol in their foods because they prefer to use sugar, knowing what it will do to their bodies.

    My reaction to this line of reasoning?  I do know what sugar was doing to my body, and what it would continue to do if I kept on eating it.  I would die from diabetes-related health problems.  That's an easy answer.  Sugar and unhealthy carb combinations were literally poisoning my body.

    I prefer to buy erythritol made from non-GMO corn and other plants, like this version from NOW.


    I'd also recommend buying the tiny sized measuring spoons that measure "dash", "pinch", etc., and label them according to actual size:

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    If you're still finding it difficult to use powdered stevia, you could use some of the recipes fromHealthyIndulgences.net, where she specifically tells (in most recipes) exactly how much NuNaturals Powdered Stevia Extract to use in the recipes. 


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Visual Grocery Shopping Guide for Trim Healthy Mama!
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Trim Healthy Mama-style Grocery Shopping List
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Trim Healthy Mama's new line of Pure Stevia Extract, Sweet Blend, and Erythritol!

    I think you'll find your foods tasting a lot better by using smaller amounts of stevia, and also by combining alternative sweeteners for a more well-rounded sugary taste.  Also keep in mind that chocolate desserts and treats are the hardest to get sweetened with stevia so that they'll taste yummy.  If you have questions about using stevia in your baking and cooking, let me know, and I'll try my best to answer them!



UPDATE:  Unfortunately, the NuNaturals Pure White Stevia Extract has changed its formulation as of April 2013.  The new version is not as sweet, and it is very difficult to avoid the bitter aftertaste.  We literally couldn't stand the taste of the "new" NuNaturals Stevia Extract, so we switched to Truvia - for the short term.  Trim Healthy Mama now sells their new THM Pure Stevia Extract, THM Sweet Blend (blend of their pure stevia extract and erythritol), and THM Erythritol, and that's what our family enjoys using now!


    Feel free to take a look at my Trim Healthy VISUAL SHOPPING LIST to get a better idea of some of the quicker food options available in your stores!

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     In the interest of full disclosure, some of the links in this post are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I receive an affiliate commission. I only recommend products I use personally. Your purchases through these links help support Joy In Our Journey. I humbly thank you for your support.

8 Comments
Cheri
5/27/2013 08:54:35 pm

Thank you for sharing about using stevia, erythritol, and zylotol; about how much to use, and the idea of using the smaller measuring spoons!

Reply
Julieanne link
5/28/2013 01:46:08 am

You're welcome! I hope this is helpful. We've learned a lot about using stevia in our home.

Reply
Gwen Brown link
5/28/2013 02:32:29 am

Oh, yay! I bought some of the tiny spoons, but couldn't remember which site gave recipes to use them with. SUCH a great post! Thank you!

Reply
Stacy Makes Cents link
5/28/2013 06:36:01 am

I love that little chart! And I love how easily you explained the switch to stevia. I agree with you 100%. I don't understand the hesitation with stevia, but instead they will gorge on sugar? Makes no sense.

Thanks for linking up!!!! :-)

Reply
Beth
5/28/2013 09:55:34 am

Thanks, this is very useful information. I think many of us view sugar as "from a plant = natural" and stevia as "from a package = processed" like Splenda, etc. That's my guess anyway. Well, plus, the whole change is hard thing!

Reply
Christy, The Simple Homemaker link
5/31/2013 03:06:34 am

This is an excellent article. We're not stevia fans. Fortunately, we don't eat sweets much at all, and most of us don't even like exceptionally sweet foods. I say "most." ;) We're waiting for our nunaturals sample to arrive in the mail, but I like your approach better--winning it! :) Thanks for the great post! Pinning.

Reply
Kim Fain
11/14/2013 01:10:14 am

Hi! I found your post about the nunaturals stevia and I used to love their stevia...until the change. :( Has the new stevia that you mentioned come out yet and if so, where can I purchase it? Does it taste as good as the original nunaturals stevia? Thank you!

Reply
Julieanne link
11/14/2013 03:36:03 pm

Hi, Kim, No, the new stevia isn't quite available yet. When it is, I'll go ahead and share that information here on my website. I'm so excited that it will be as good - if not better - than the NuNaturals old version was!

Reply



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    ​​Hi!  I'm Julieanne!
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