Stevia is not a sweetener that is approved for use by the FDA. It is actually classified as a dietary supplement, an herb, that happens to be sweeter than sugar and can be - and is - used as a sweetener. It is all natural, has no calories (or carbs) and is getting more and more popular, though it makes up only a small portion of the non-sugar sweetener market.
Its popularity is due to an increased awareness for the product, thanks to well-placed advertisements and hard work on the part of the SweetLeaf Stevia brand's LA marketing firm, which has made sure that high end restaurants and even stores carry the product, prompting even more coverage from newspapers and magazines.
The only problem with Stevia, according to both the manufacturers and consumers, is that it is still hard to find. Not all stores carry it. Some stores, like Trader Joe's, try to make the product easily visible, but because it is an herb, it is often stocked in the supplements aisle in other stores, not in the section of the market with the sugars and sweeteners. Clearly this is not a huge setback, however, because the sales of the sweetener are steadily increasing. In the last year alone, they have increased almost 40%, though overall sales are only one tenth of the sales of Splenda, the top selling non-sugar sweetener.
If the interest in the product keeps growing at this rate - and it seems likely to - we could see Stevia become more widely available and used in more packaged products in place of artificial sugars.
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