Truvia

lilguysmama · Post by **lilguysmama** » Thu Aug 19, 2010 10:24 pm

I was just wondering is truvia allowed during the week. It's really sweet, but has no calories at all. I love to drink sweet tea but can't have it during the week so i need to make unsweet tea. Same thing with lemonade.
And alsoI even tryed to count calories but my mind just wanted to come back to this. Does anyone have suggestions on this plan.

Thanks

Aleria · Post by **Aleria** » Thu Aug 19, 2010 11:09 pm

You can have sugar-sweetened drinks during the week, too. There's no rule against sweet drinks, just sweets.
Since fruit juice has as much sugar as pop sometimes, but I still drink it a lot, even during the week.

lilguysmama · Post by **lilguysmama** » Fri Aug 20, 2010 12:21 am

So its ok to use the truvia then.
I'm trying to stay away from soda if I can. I get so addicted to it so fast.
And to much caffine for me make me jittery after a while.

DaveMc · Post by **DaveMc** » Sat Aug 21, 2010 6:49 pm

Aleria wrote:You can have sugar-sweetened drinks during the week, too. There's no rule against sweet drinks, just sweets.
Since fruit juice has as much sugar as pop sometimes, but I still drink it a lot, even during the week.

Well, I'd be a bit careful, there ... Most people would treat non-diet soda (called "pop" by most people here in Toronto) as an S. Drinks aren't immune from being classified as sweets: anything where the main source of calories is from sugar can count as a sweet - otherwise, you could have the odd situation of scrupulously avoiding cookies, while happily drinking a Super Big Gulp or a Giant Slushie, each of which are giant pools of sugar-water.

The general advice is that if you have to have something between meals, drinks are better than solids, since it's not eating and thus not likely to lead you to mentally label it as a meal. But I don't think that means that drinks are anything-goes. In terms of fruit juice, it does seem to be true that it has startling amounts of sugar and calories, but in practice most people don't seem to drink it in nearly the same quantities as they drink soda/pop, so it's usually not considered a problem. I suppose it varies from person to person.

Having said all that, I don't know what to make of truvia (or its underlying ingredient, stevia). It's "all natural", but then again, so are curare and tetrodotoxin and rattlesnake venom, so the "all natural" label is never all that convincing to me, by itself. It's probably too early to tell what its health implications are ... If it's really just an unusually sweet plant juice, it's probably no worse than the things they use in other diet sodas, and maybe better.

wosnes · Post by **wosnes** » Sat Aug 21, 2010 7:18 pm

How much sugar do you put in your tea?

lilguysmama · Post by **lilguysmama** » Sat Aug 21, 2010 10:28 pm

We'll I really don't drink hot tea. But when I make my own sweet tea I usually make a gallon size and put a cup or so in there.

wosnes · Post by **wosnes** » Sun Aug 22, 2010 1:01 pm

I'm not fond of the various sugar substitutes including stevia/truvia, agave nectar and so on.

If you put a cup of sugar in a gallon of iced tea, that's about one tablespoon per 8 ounce serving of tea. It turns out to be about 50 calories/glass.

How long does that gallon of tea last? If you're only drinking 2-3 glasses daily, I wouldn't worry about it too much. However, I think I'd try to use less sugar in the tea. Maybe cut it down gradually so the difference isn't so noticeable.

Yes, it's refined sugar and we should be trying to reduce our consumption of that. But in terms of calories consumed, it's got a lot fewer calories than the juice or milk we're allowed to have between meals and less than regular soda pop.