Trader Joe's carries it, and I'd bet some health-food stores would as well. Since I kept not managing to get to TJ's when they were open, I wound up ordering it online (I have to go look up where I ordered it from).
Stevia was the subject of FUD from big food corporations, who obstructed attempts to get it okayed as a food additive (so it's sold as an herbal supplement, but doesn't show up as an ingredient in packaged foods and beverages), but, revealing what their real objection to it was, Coca-Cola is now touting stevia's virtues now that they have a processed version, Truvía[1], that they can charge more for and license the patent on, etc. It's in Giant and Safeway, I think; not sure where else. It's also waay more expensive per serving than plain stevia powder. (But it does, as Coca-Cola claims, reduce the aftertaste that some people dislike.)
Some folks don't notice an aftertaste with stevia, others can't stand the stuff. I find that if I mix it with sucralose, I can keep the concentration of each below its Glenn-notices-objectionable-aftertaste threshold and get my coffee (and my cinnamon yogurt) to the right sweetness.
The thing about straight stevia is that you have to use miniscule quantities. It's one of the super-sweet, "essentially non-nutritive just because you can't use enough of it at once to add up to measurable food-value", sweeteners, not one of the not-metabolized ones. If you put a pinch in the palm of your hand and lick it, it tastes seriously metallic, but half a pinch in a cup of coffee doesn't taste like much other than being sweet.
(In addition to plain stevia powder and liquid extracts, it's also sold with fiber and some quackery-sounding anti-diabetes substance added to it, which makes it easier to measure (by adding bulk) but also produces a white film on the surface of your coffee. The brand of nothing-added stevia powder I bought has an itty bitty plastic scoop to make measuring easier, thank goodness.)
(no subject)
Stevia was the subject of FUD from big food corporations, who obstructed attempts to get it okayed as a food additive (so it's sold as an herbal supplement, but doesn't show up as an ingredient in packaged foods and beverages), but, revealing what their real objection to it was, Coca-Cola is now touting stevia's virtues now that they have a processed version, Truvía[1], that they can charge more for and license the patent on, etc. It's in Giant and Safeway, I think; not sure where else. It's also waay more expensive per serving than plain stevia powder. (But it does, as Coca-Cola claims, reduce the aftertaste that some people dislike.)
Some folks don't notice an aftertaste with stevia, others can't stand the stuff. I find that if I mix it with sucralose, I can keep the concentration of each below its Glenn-notices-objectionable-aftertaste threshold and get my coffee (and my cinnamon yogurt) to the right sweetness.
The thing about straight stevia is that you have to use miniscule quantities. It's one of the super-sweet, "essentially non-nutritive just because you can't use enough of it at once to add up to measurable food-value", sweeteners, not one of the not-metabolized ones. If you put a pinch in the palm of your hand and lick it, it tastes seriously metallic, but half a pinch in a cup of coffee doesn't taste like much other than being sweet.
(In addition to plain stevia powder and liquid extracts, it's also sold with fiber and some quackery-sounding anti-diabetes substance added to it, which makes it easier to measure (by adding bulk) but also produces a white film on the surface of your coffee. The brand of nothing-added stevia powder I bought has an itty bitty plastic scoop to make measuring easier, thank goodness.)
(no subject)
(no subject)