The Herbal Writer

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It’s amazing how long it can take me to make connections between what I have ingested and unpleasant physical affects; but unpleasant symptoms are precisely what I have experienced since using Truvia.

As a hardened and shameless tea drinker, I am always looking for ways to sweeten my favorite beverage in ways that will not involve sugar in all its caloric sweetness. Truvia seemed like the perfect solution to the problem I had with my favorite sweetener, Sweet Leaf stevia: its expense. Besides, I had a coupon. Then, as if fate approved of my sweetener ventures, I found a small zip top bag full of Truvia packets at a yard sale for $1 – the seller said she didn’t like it, and preferred organic sugar. I let the incomparable nature of the two sweeteners go and bought the stuff.

Using it in tea has worked fine, hot and iced, drinking it basically all day.

Because of the bargains, I had lots of Truvia without a big investment. So I thought I’d try baking cookies with it (recipe at the Truvia website). That’s when the trouble started. (The cookies were lousy, by the way.)

I indulged in the raw cookie batter and subsequent cookies, their lousiness notwithstanding. (Oooo, there’s so little sugar in this recipe! Let’s eat lots, even if the cookies are dry, cake-like, and crumbly!) My son also indulged, but being the grownup in the house, I did a lot more sneaking of extra batter and cookies than he did.

About 12 hours following this Truvia ingestion spree (and following my sneaking of the last two cookies before breakfast – no, they didn’t improve overnight), I developed nasty stomach symptoms. It felt like very bad gas, but there was also stomach pain and a general feeling of what my dad would call a “sour stomach.” It was quite unpleasant, and the pain was significant. Loose bowel movements also resulted in both my son and I. My son (who is 7) also said he had odd stomach symptoms, though they were not as severe as mine (there’s no grownup to curb my ingestion of Truvia-sweetened baked goods). I experienced extreme rumblies all day – good thing I was working from home as the noises emanating from my midriff were most disturbing – and found myself making multiple bathroom trips.

I was still sneaking frozen cookie dough, not connecting these symptoms with the Truvia. I ate quite a bit of the dough just last night, about 28 hours after making the cookies and about 18 hours after the first symptoms.

Today, we’ve moved on to diarrhea. I won’t tell you where I am sitting while typing this, but let’s just say I am grateful for a lightweight laptop with a strong battery.

The rumbling, churning, gas-y feeling tends to come on after/during eating, whether what I am eating has Truvia in it or not. I used Truvia in my hot tea this morning and in my iced tea which I am drinking now. During lunch, here came the rumblies, so I Googled “Truvia stomach gas.”

It seems I am not alone.

http://healthpersonal.blogspot.com/2008/11/anyone-else-tried-truvia.html

http://freedomandlinux.wordpress.com/2010/03/31/the-truvia-deception/

http://www.fitsugar.com/Sweeteners-PureVia-Truvia-Safe-2866994?page=0%2C1

Hm…maybe I’d better cough up the dough (and stop sneaking the dough) and buy stevia again.