Stevia Shoot-Out: Truvia vs. Stevia in the Raw vs. Splenda
Posted by Greg Bulmash in The Diet
In a previous post, I said while I would not be specifically avoiding any artificial sweeteners like Equal or Splenda, I also wasn’t wild about using them to sweeten my tea or coffee. I also wasn’t wild about various sugar alcohols for various reasons, so I’d decided I was going to try some new stevia-based sweeteners, primarily Stevia Extract in the Raw from Cumberland and Truvia from Cargill.
Stevia Extract in the Raw, despite calling itself a zero calorie sweetener, falls victim to a similar problem Splenda has. It bulks up the super-sweet component — in this case stevia extract — with dextrose, which is a form of glucose. I couldn’t find out how many calories a pack of Stevia Extract in the Raw actually has, but Splenda is reputed to have 3.3 calories, or nearly a gram of carbs per packet.
Truvia, on the other hand, bulks up its Stevia extract with Erythritol, a sugar alcohol that’s 60-70% as sweet as sugar, but only has 0.2 calories per gram (per Wikipedia). With three grams of Erythritol and a half gram of Stevia extract and flavoring agents per packet, Truvia has around 0.6 calories per packet and also has a more sugar-like bulk.
To test the two sweeteners, I brewed a pot of tea and divided it among three cups. In one cup I used packets of Stevia Extract in the Raw, in the next I used two packets of Truvia, and in the last, since both products claim one packet is equal to two teaspoons of sugar, I used four measured teaspoons of organic sugar. Each cup was stirred with a separate spoon and I drank water to cleanse my mouth before tasting each sample.
First, the least surprising result… for best flavor, sugar won. Not only was it a hair sweeter than the runner up for sweetness, but it gave the tea a silkier and smoother mouth feel than either of the artificial sweeteners.
One of the common complaints about Stevia is an aftertaste similar to black licorice. Both Stevia Extract in the Raw and Truvia claim to have gotten rid of that. But my first sip of the tea sweetened with Stevia Extract in the Raw provided a strong licorice aftertaste that it took two swigs of water, vigorously swished around, to remove. It brought back memories of the 70s, when saccharin ruled the sweetener roost. I even had my wife taste it to make sure I was not having a unique reaction.
Truvia, to its credit, had no nasty aftertaste. It’s also nowhere near as sweet as two teaspoons of sugar. Of the three mixtures, it was noticeably less sweet than the other two. So a fourth cup of tea was made, using three packets of Truvia. That brought the sweetness up to par with the sugar and the Stevia in the Raw. It also brought some aftertaste into play.
To Truvia’s credit, the aftertaste was significantly milder than with Stevia Extract in the Raw, more of a hint of licorice than a full-blown hit of it. I walked away for a couple of minutes to let the drink cool and rinsed my mouth with water. The next sip was very nice. The tea with three packets of Truvia was pleasantly sweet and exhibited some of the silky mouth feel the two-packet Truvia cup and the Stevia Extract in the Raw were missing. If I stepped away longer, letting both beverages cool more significantly, the aftertaste in both went up. With the Truvia, it seemed some of the sweetness also disappeared, and stirring the tea helped with both the aftertaste and the sweetness issues. With the Stevia Extract in the Raw, stirring didn’t make a significant difference.
So while neither of these knocked it out of the park, if I were going to switch to a Stevia-based sweetener, Truvia currently had the lead. But I’ve been comparing the calories of Truvia to the calories of Splenda, so I decided to make one last cup of tea, this time sweetened with two packets of Splenda.
Sugar still beat Splenda on mouth feel, but Splenda beat both Truvia and Stevia Extract in the Raw on taste. It tasted more like sugar and didn’t have any significant aftertaste. Going back to it as it cooled, a mild aftertaste began to emerge, but the worst sip of the Splenda-sweetened tea still beat the heck out of the taste of the Stevia in the Raw on any sip and was only beat by Truvia on the best sip from the three-packet cup.
Splenda also has a cost advantage because it’s been on the market longer and I can pick up a 1,000-packet box of Splenda at Costco for a cost of 2.2 cents per packet, while the everyday prices for a 40-count box of Truvia and a 50-count box of Stevia Extract in the Raw put their per-packet prices at 11.5 and 7.6 cents respectively.
That means, drinking two sweetened beverages a day, my annual cost for 3 packets of Truvia per beverage would come out to $251.30, while my annual cost for two packets of Stevia Extract in the Raw per beverage would be $110.67, and my annual cost for two packets of Splenda per beverage would be $32.46.
While money is a concern for me, if the taste really knocked it out of the park, I could justify the extra costs for the Truvia, because that $218.84 breaks down to less than sixty cents a day. Plus I’d search hard online for better prices to rein that in even more.
With cost out of the way, the consideration falls to taste vs. carbs. Three packets of Truvia vs. two of Splenda will save you approximately 4.8 calories, or around 1.2 grams of carbs. If you’re consuming these beverages in moderation, that extra gram per drink won’t do huge things to your results, even when you’re doing the induction phase of Atkins.
So, while all the reading and testing and writing was an interesting adventure, both Truvia and Stevia Extract in the Raw failed to live up to their hype or their manufacturer’s claims. I’ll be sticking with Splenda… for the time being.
Entries (RSS)
Thank you for your review of Splenda vs. Truvia. I have lost 30 lbs. after switching from sugar to Splenda. But have become slightly concerned with some of the reviews I’ve read about it’s safety. I was interested in learning about stevia based sweeteners. You’re review gave me all of the information that I wanted: a cost comparison and a taste comparison. Looks like I will continue to use Splenda unless more conclusive evidence convinces me otherwise. Thanks again.
Just wanted to point out a couple of things:
1. Printed right on the front of each little, green Stevia In The Raw packet are the words “Zero Calories”. On the back of the box there is nutritional information. It says 0 calories and “less than” one gram of carbohydrates.
2. The process of turning sugar into “Splenda” substitutes three atoms of chlorine in place of the naturally occuring hydrogen-oxygen groups in the sucrose molecule.
Thanks for your post. Anytime a new product hits the markets its important for the community to be aware that marketers are looking for profits and not our friends. Consumers have to stick together and share information that is otherwise difficult to discover.
Susan, welcome to America, the land of approximations and rounding errors. According to many claims in articles I’ve read (and this FDA document), products with under 5 calories can be (and may have to be) rounded down to zero on their labels. That means that Splenda, with approx. 3.3 calories per packet can be labeled as having 0 calories. But if you use two packs of splenda in 5 cups of coffee/tea a day, you’re now over 33 calories and 8 grams of carbs from your zero-calorie, zero-carb sweetener.
As for your second point, there’s no evidence that the three chlorine atoms do anything significant in your system, particularly not if you’re consuming low to moderate amounts of sucralose. The people who bring it up have no evidence from reputable studies to prove that its harmful. It just sounds harmful because it’s chlorine.
Thank you for your hard work as a guinea pig! I would like to point out however the health benefits of stevia. Stevia has been used for years as an herbal supplement to help balance blood sugar. This can help with weight loss, and is paticularly beneficial if you, like many overweight individuals, have diabetes or high blood sugar. I have tried both truvia and sugar in the raw brand. I agree that truvia has a better mouth feel, but the sugar alcohol gave it a different, non-licorice, aftertaste. I will use it on toast or other items which I want a sugar texture for, but am sticking with sugar in the raw brand for my tea, oatmeal, etc.
Having tried all the sweetners listed above, Splenda in coffee is very good. but I found that the Stevia in the raw in my coffee is absolutely yummy! With Truvia I found that the after taste was rather strong. Iced tea is lousy with both Truvia and Stevia in the raw, Equal is not much better, Splenda is good, but my first choice for iced tea is always Sweet N Low. It dissolves instantly and works very well with the cold tea. The only hot tea I drink is at Chinese food and I use sugar for that.
Just bought Truvia last night. It was suggested that I switch from Splenda to Truvia by a person I consult with on nutrition. I have not yet bought into or educated myself on any “dangers” of splenda due to good solid research. However, I have benefited greatly by following the advice of this nutritionist friend. After using Truvia in my coffee this morning, my experience was very similar, if not exact, to yours. It took more Truvia to equal the sweetness of Splenda and there is a very slight licorice taste which I only noticed after reading your comment while drinking my coffee. Not a big concern to me, especially if I didn’t notice it to begin with. But the Truvia has a smooth taste like raw sugar. I think I can adapt to it and right now the cost isn’t much of a factor since I’m primarily using it in my coffee. I will have to carry some around with me as it is not in the coffee shops. Q – do you have any genuinely researched info on Splenda that shows it is a concern?
Thanks for the taste test and posted results. Martin
I’ve used sucralose in baking with great success. However, some recipes that require a lot of sweetener end up having a mild aftertaste. I used a 50/50 Truvia/Splenda mix and achieved great results. BTW, if you want to avoid carbs, buy a liquid Splenda product, like EZ-Sweetz.