but "table salt" contains iodine, and that requires a refining brine which is an industrial process. Its natural but also not. When it comes down to it, lots of this is splitting hairs
its like some vegans cant decide if a FIG is natural or not, since wild figs, or normal ones are fertilized by fig wasps and thier parasitoids. the fig wasps die in the fig after laying its eggs and fertilizing.
I would say synthesis in this example is the creation of a molecular compound from differing source materials while refinement is the isolation and concentration of an existing compound.
That's precisely why I use it in my coffee and have for many years. However there's a big difference from one brand to another I've found. Sweet Leaf stevia drops are the only kind I'll use now.
i use it too, because almost all the other brands have dextrose, which is basically actual sugar, or ehtyrithiol, which is a sweetener, but it can cause GI issues. I bought 2 boxes from amazon to try it out, its worht it. its pricey but not sugar is better.
Yeah the first stevia I ever got had dextrose in it and literally 8 grains was enough, it was silly. I didn't know until I was almost done that it was just basically sugar.
Might not be artificial, but it doesn't look natural in sweetener form:
The process of extracting stevia -
Dried stevia leaves are subjected to purified water first. Then followed by a precipitation process with ferric chloride and calcium hydroxide to remove non-soluble plant materials & other impurities and follow filtration.
Then the leaf extract goes through an adsorption resin, which is used to trap the steviol glycosides of the leaf extract.
Afterward, wash the resin with ethanol to release steviol glycosides and decolorize the resulting solution with activated carbon to remove the colors in leaves, and then concentrated by evaporation.
Again, go through the process of decolorization, filtration and spray-drying. The spray-dried product is then combined with similarly processed additional extracts, dissolved in ethanol and/or methanol, crystallized and filtered. Finally, after further processes of crystallization, filtered and spray-dried to obtain pure stevioside.
Dried stevia leaves are subjected to purified water first. Then followed by a precipitation process with ferric chloride and calcium hydroxide to remove non-soluble plant materials & other impurities and follow filtration.
So they’re washed with soap and water? Must we use the scariest language possible here?
some people dont like the taste of stevia, i used at least the ones that have actual stevia, and not just filled with dextrose, which is basically sugar, or ethyrithiol. its pricier and less sweet. ALot of stevia products will have sugar in it. i buy the sweet leaf, i heard you can get pure stevia leaves, but its expensive.