From ElaineHF@aol.comThu Dec 21 13:37:41 1995
Date: Mon, 27 Nov 1995 23:59:25 -0500
From: ElaineHF@aol.com
To: bettym19@mindspring.com, DblDarlin@aol.com, MaryStodd@aol.com
Subject: Whitaker's Article of November 1995/Stevia

Dr. Julian Whitaker’s Health & Healing, November 1995, Vol. 5, No. 11

Stevia Update - You Did It!

     Stevia, the natural sweetener, is back - thanks to you, and people
like you.  We now have a noncaloric sweetener that can be added to
cereals and beverages and used in cooking.  This sweetener is not a
synthetic chemical, nor has it been implicated in health problems, as
has aspartame (brand names NutraSweet and Equal).

     As I wrote in December 1994, stevia is 200 times sweeter than
sugar, and in Japan it claims 41% of the sweetener market.  In the
entire history of stevia use as a sweetener in Japan, even in Diet Coke,
there have never been any complaints or concerns about its safety.

     Celestial Seasonings, one of the largest herbal tea companies in
the world, used stevia as a flavoring and sweetener in many teas.  In
1986, without warning, FDA agents entered their warehouse, seized their
entire stock of stevia, and told Them they could not use it in their
teas.  In 1991, the FDA banned stevia, claiming that in spite of its use
worldwide as a sweetener additive with no reported side effects, it was
an “unsafe food additive.”

I Asked You to Write to the FDA...

     I was incensed by this behavior, which was so obviously geared to
eliminate competition for aspartame, a chemical sweetener that is loaded
with potential toxicity.  I asked Health & Healing subscribers to write
to FDA Commissioner David Kessler and ask why stevia, a food product
with a record of hundreds of years of safe consumption and available in
almost every other country in the world, was banned in the United
States.  I also asked subscribers to demand that it be put back on the
market.

...And It Helped

     Those intimately connected with the stevia story report that this
letter-writing campaign helped, along with the tireless efforts of
several manufacturers and organizations.  The FDA is now allowing stevia
back on the market as a nutritional supplement.  However, they continue
the ban on stevia as a food additive.  This ban is certainly not to
protect you, the consumer.

     We know the FDA sides with the big boys against the small guys, and
that it is capable of taking a natural, safe sweetener such as stevia
and banning it as a food additive to product the chemical giant
Monsanto’s product NutraSweet.  What perplexes me is that they do it so
blatantly!  Why is stevia allowed back on the market as a nutritional
supplement but not as a food additive?  You can add stevia to your food
as much as you wish, but a food manufacturing company cannot.

     Federal law prohibits federal regulators from being “arbitrary and
capricious” in their actions.  Yet the FDA is arbitrary and capricious
virtually all the time.

Aspartame May Be More Dangerous Than We Thought

     Aspartame generates methanol in the intestinal tract, and even
small amounts of this toxin could be causing significant eye problems.
Aspartame has also been demonstrated to cause brain tumors in rats, and
there has been a dramatic increase in the incidence of brain tumors in
this country since aspartame was added to our food supply.  In addition,
aspartame is suspected of causing seizures.  Do you need any more
reasons to ban aspartame from your diet?

       H.J. Roberts, M.D., F.A.C.P. who has testified before Congress
and the FDA on this subject, feels that aspartame-containing products
may be responsible for our increasing number of eye problems.  He
recommends that patients with decreased vision, blurred vision, bright
flashes, tunnel vision, black spots, and other eye problems or
unexplained retinal detachment or bleeding, hold off on any aggressive
treatment until they have eliminated aspartame from their diet for at
least one month.  In many cases, this can alleviate these symptoms.

      The bottom line is:  Avoid aspartame - try stevia instead.  It is
available in a white powder, a concentrated liquid, or tea bags or
leaves in health food stores.