Look at all your labels and see how many times you see high fructose corn syrup………….  When I was healing and started learning about what causes our bodies to break down, I naturally had to look at what I was putting into my body.  I found out that most of the foods and drinks I consumed were altered in some way so there was little or no nutritional value.

One of the first products I became aware of was processed and refined sugar.  It is everywhere, in everything.  We don’t even stop and consider what these processes are doing to our food before we put it into our body.  We are trusting others that they are safe.  I found that I could not feed myself or my kids water and refined sugar. Most of the drinks and juices available for our kids have no nutritional value and we have no idea the harm they are causing to their little brains and bodies from all the chemicals and processing. 

I found stevia to be an all natural easy to use substitute.  Now check out what this company is using stevia for. 

As part of my cancer support I will continue to pass on new products and companies.  Tell me what you thing in the comments or what you would like to hear more about.

Seattle-based Zevia selling all-natural, zero-calorie drink
By ANDREA JAMES
P-I REPORTER

Diet soda addicts — they know who they are — have a special bond with their choice drinks.

But the founders of Seattle-based Zevia, a year-old soda company, are encouraging Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi devotees to cheat on their beloveds.

It takes about one can to get hooked, explained Ian Eisenberg, one of three founders. Zevia’s Cola has 45 milligrams of caffeine — comparable to a can of Diet Coke.

In the race to put an all-natural, zero-calorie soft drink on the market, Zevia has beaten the beverage giants. Zevia, which comes in four flavors, is sweetened with stevia.

Stevia is a natural sweetener emerging into U.S. consumer consciousness. It is extracted from the stevia herb, native to the South American rain forest. Its leaf tastes like honeysuckle.

Stevia competes with artificial sweeteners and sugar. The sweetener wars — saccharin as Sweet’N Low, sucralose as Splenda, aspartame as NutraSweet and Equal, sugar as itself — are well-documented and have left consumers confused.

“People are looking for a natural diet soda,” said Jessica Newman, another founder.

Newman is a marathoner who would pump her body full of Diet Coke after a workout, according to her husband and business partner, Derek Newman.

“It really worried me,” he said, especially when he couldn’t find diet soda without chemicals.

Before their Zevia venture, Derek, 36, and Jessica, 37, ran their own Seattle law firm, Newman & Newman. Reformed Diet Coke fiend Eisenberg, 40, founded the now-defunct Blue Frog Mobile.

In 2005, the three friends learned about stevia from a California friend who was a “health food nut.”

Eisenberg said they realized, “We should start a soda company using this.”

The trio hired a flavor artist to create a formula that eliminates stevia’s bitter aftertaste. Its formula is patent-pending.

“We made a lot of really, really bad soda and drank it,” Eisenberg said.

Perfecting the cola was particularly tough. Says Jessica Newman, “There’s a reason Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi don’t have a lot of competition. We are on a crusade to get people to kick the diet soda habit.”

Zevia has developed a devout following: People who order a $24 case of 24 cans online have to pay another $24 for shipping — and they do it. The company gets about 30 online orders per day.

Earlier this week, Derek Newman triumphantly opened his inbox to show off the fan e-mails. By the hundreds, they contained subject lines such as, “wow,” “thank you!!!” and “yum.”

One customer, self-identified as Paula A. from Idaho and Texas, wrote, “This is THE GREATEST discovery since life began on this planet! The flavors are fabulous — my very favorite is orange. Any chances of developing a grape soda? MMMmmmm!! ”

After a legal career full of depressing messages, Jessica Newman said, “These are why we get up in the morning.”

Native people in Paraguay and Brazil use stevia to sweeten hot teas. And stevia has been used in Japan since the early 1970s to sweeten foods. But the Food and Drug Administration has turned down companies that asked to add it to foods here. Stevia fans say that the FDA has banned the plant extract under pressure from the artificial sweetener industry.

Stevia products, including Zevia, are now sold as dietary supplements, a class of food and vitamins over which the FDA has less control.

Studies on the benefits and weaknesses of stevia haven’t been widespread, and mostly focus on large doses given to rats, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Science in the Public Interest.

Zevia may soon face huge competition. In May, Cargill and Coca-Cola Co. made a stevia product named Truvia. The companies say that their research submitted to the FDA proves that Truvia is safe.

Atlanta-based Coca-Cola could market a beverage containing stevia by the end of this year, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported this month.

Also this summer, PepsiCo and Merisant Co. introduced PureVia as a sweetener. Pepsi plans to sell a drink containing the sweetener in Peru. Purchase, N.Y.-based Pepsi also plans to release PureVia tabletop sweetener into the U.S. market this fall.

Both Coke and Pepsi appear to be waiting on FDA approval to sell stevia in a soft drink.

Zevia doesn’t really need an FDA stamp of approval to do well, especially as the agency loses credibility. In November, a panel of scientific advisers reported to Congress that the FDA “cannot fulfill its mission because its scientific base has eroded and its scientific organizational structure is weak.”

Zevia is sold nationwide in about 900 stores. It sells alongside other types of sodas, even though it’s classified as a dietary supplement, not a food product. The restrictions mean that Zevia cannot claim to be a soft drink and cannot declare zero calories. Thus, a Zevia can says, “A dietary supplement is not permitted to disclose the amount of calories, carbs, fat, when there is zero. For that reason, Zevia does not disclose them.”

The company is privately held and backed by its founders and angel investors.

Dr. Jonathan Wright, medical director of the Tahoma Clinic, invested in the company after first recommending the soda to his patients.

Wright said his 35-year-old son called him about six weeks ago and said, “Dad, you’ll never guess what I found — a soft drink that’s actually safe.”

He added, “I didn’t believe him.”

But after researching the product, Wright said, he found Zevia trustworthy because its sweetener has been used for centuries in other countries.

“People say, ‘Aren’t there any soft drinks I can drink?’ ” Wright said.

“I’ve had to until now tell them, ‘I’m sorry, no.’ Even though this is officially a carbonated stevia supplement — that’s FDA for you — and not a soft drink.”
SWEET
Stevia is a sugar substitute with no calories, no fat and no carbohydrates. It comes from a South American tropical plant, and has been used in South America and Asia as a sweetener for hot teas. The FDA considers it safe as a dietary supplement but not as a food product — a designation that critics have called confusing.