stevia plant sweeteners?

its a natural low or no calorie sweetener

i don't find their flavor very good... but if you want a natural artificial sweetener its one of the few choices.

I have tried a few extracts, but I havn't tried the new ones Coke/Pepsi are promoting: Truvia & Purvia.

they tend to be very expensive compared to nutrasweet, splenda, and other sweeteners

More good news for stevia came when a few studies (again, often sponsored by the industry) showed that stevia-derived sweeteners not only taste sweet, but also may help individuals improve insulin production (which in turn would help with diabetes) and even help with hypertension (high blood pressure). Of course, not enough is known about stevia's effects to know whether this is indeed true, but you will see these studies frequently mentioned on stevia websites.

Bottom line: Right now, there is certainly not enough data to conclude anything about using stevia to treat high blood pressure, diabetes, osteoporosis or anything else. Be careful when reading research on stevia. Some studies use different types of plants, different extraction methods and different parts of the plants than others, making it difficult to compare data across studies.

Stevia and Antioxidants

Stevia is an antioxidant. Antioxidants help your body fight off the damage caused by free radicals (and limiting free radical aging). Stevia, as with all plants, contains a number of antioxidants. This puts stevia (assuming it is safe) way ahead of other sweeteners which contain no such beneficial antioxidants.

i've got used powdered stevia and it has a average aftertaste, quite bitter or something. I additionally bought one plant from the farmer's industry and grew it one summer season time, a leaf or 2 can sweeten iced tea and tasted extra useful than the powder. The seeds are sluggish to germinate or i could purchase a packet and start up my own.