Sweetening Cold Drinks with Stevia

One of the best uses for stevia is to sweeten cold drinks. Liquid stevia drops blend easily into a cold drink. White powdered stevia takes a little more stirring, but dissolves well, too. Both can be carried easily in a pocket or purse. Stevia is so suited to sweetening drinks that it even comes in little premeasured packets for that purpose.

Even if you are skeptical about stevia, try using it to sweeten cold drinks, particularly if you are a fan of iced tea. I had reduced my sugar intake to the point where the only sugar I had was sweetening my iced tea in restaurants. And I had reduced that from dumping in the whole teaspoon packet to using about one quarter of the packet. And I was using Sugar-In-The-Raw instead of white sugar. I had been carrying around some little packets of white powdered stevia in my purse, but never used it. FInally, one day I brought out my little packet of stevia, and dissolved the powder in my tea. Wow! Not only did it taste sweet and delicious, but my body just soaked it up and wanted more. It was like, "Where has this been all my life?" My husband loves it too and had the same physical response of his body loving it.

There are a couple of tricks to using stevia that I finally learned. One is that you really have to use only a little. The right amount can taste just like cane sugar--too much tastes bitter. Learning that "just right" amount can be a bit tricky, but I've learned to start with a small amount and keep adding til it tastes right. Now I know that one packet is the right amount for a tall glass of tea in a restaurant, but I only need half a packet if the glass is small.

The other thing is that stevia is really excellent for sweetening a limited number of things, and doesn't work at all for other things. But it is great, great, great for cold drinks of all kinds.

I've used SweetLeaf Stevia Plus to create these recipes here, with great success. I chose that brand simply because was easily available at my local natural food store and had the best price.

If you grow stevia plants or buy whole dried stevia leaves, you can put them in with your tea leaves and steep them with other herbs while making your tea. This is very delicious and as natural as you can get.