We have always been and will always be open-minded to any ingredients that we feel support human health and help to create delicious tastes. After reading copious amounts of research, we concluded that stevia was a health-supporting plant that even has medicinal properties. While doing recipe R&D, we found that we did not like the taste of the stevia forms and extracts on the market, until we came across uniquely organic water-only-extracted stevia by SWT Stevia. Their stevia extract is created through a process that only involves water, from start to finish, resulting in a stevia extract that is biochemically intact (as in the natural leaf), and tastes smooth and sweet, with no strange aftertastes. We learnt that this is because all other stevia suppliers use harsh chemicals to extract their stevia (or even grow it in the lab, without growing the stevia plant at all), and this results in an extract with a different biochemical structure, and different taste. SWT Stevia do fundamental research on metabolism and taste receptors – they care about the healthfulness and taste as the pinnacle priorities, as do we. We did experiment with monk fruit, but found that on balance, it had some aftertaste and unpleasant notes compared to our stevia. In addition to all of the promising health research on stevia (that we read, and conduct ourselves), its long history of consumption by humans (even featuring in the Ancient Mayan story of the Popol Vuh) encourages us in our conclusion that it is not only safe, but beneficial to human health. We choose our particular stevia, because we find it is the most delicious sweetening ingredient.
