Super Eco

Photo credit: SweetLeaf

“Illegal drugs.” It’s not every day that you read those words on the back of a box of no-calorie sweetener, the other white dust pick-me-up.

Need some context? Here you go, straight from my new, unopened 100-pack of SweetLeaf, a stevia-based alternative to saccharin, aspartame, refined sugar and fructose: “(Our) farmers are learning they can earn more growing stevia than crops used for illegal drugs.” SweetLeaf’s salacious-to-sustainable argument makes for an odd but unforgettable marketing tactic, one I’m willing to bet its chemical competitors—Equal, NutraSweet, Sweet N’ Low and Splenda—aren’t rushing to embrace (just as none embrace sustainability itself or just about any green business practice, for that matter).

Speaking of sweets and nose candy, Coca-Cola hasn’t spiked its sugar water with cocaine for more than a century. However, the global beverage behemoth is rumored to be lacing its Japanese Diet Coke and Powerade brands with stevia, the main ingredient in SweetLeaf. The potent tropical plant-extracted sweetener is up to 30 times sweeter than table sugar; a little dab’ll do ya’ (one packet=two teaspoons of sugar).

Now, thanks to the FDA’s decades-long-awaited decision this month to green-light stevia as GRAS (“generally recognized as safe” for consumption), Coca-Cola is scrambling to snag some of SweetLeaf’s sweet stateside market share with the introduction of its own stevia blend sweetener, Truvia.

Stevia is the only all-natural, zero-calorie, zero-glycemic index sweetener on store shelves (mostly in health food shops) today. Unlike many of its man-made counterparts, clinical studies have cleared the natural dietary supplement of any potential links to toxicity, cancer, reproductive health problems and negative effects on blood-sugar levels (it’s safe for diabetics and hypoglycemics). SweetLeaf appears to be the total package in a tiny packet, without the bitter aftertaste of artificial sweeteners. But all that yummy goodness (without the green guilt and impossible-to-pronounce toxic ingredients) will cost you, ringing up at $12.99 for a 100-packet box. Sweet.