Coca-Cola Plans to Use Stevia

Coca-Cola Plans to Use Stevia
Coca-Cola has teamed up with Cargill, inc. to develop a zero-calorie sweetener made from the stevia plant. Researchers at Coca-Cola and Cargill have isolated a compound called rebiana, which will be used as the basis of their new natural, zero-calorie sweetener.
Stevia can currently be found as a dietary supplement in the United States and is often used as a natural sweetener, although it is labeled as an herb.

Coca Cola will begin offering beverages and foods sweetened with the stevia product in Japan, but it may take a while before these products will be available in the United States. While stevia is approved as a dietary supplement, the FDA has not approved stevia for use as a food additive, due to claims of possible liver damage.

There is a large market for sweeteners that won't add calories, because so many of us have a sweet-tooth, but we don't want the extra calories. The new stevia-derived sweetener would compete with aspartame and sucralose, which are the two most commonly found zero-calorie sweeteners available. While some older studies claim that stevia use may be linked to liver damage, many supporters nix the old studies and believe new studies would show stevia to be safe.