by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, December 2, 2008
Key concepts: Stevia, Pepsi and Diet soda

PepsiCo said it's ready to rock with stevia-sweetened soft drinks as soon as the FDA ends its decades-long ban on stevia in foods and beverages. It joins Coca-Cola and Cargill in ramping up plans for stevia-related products in anticipation of FDA GRAS approval.

The FDA has kept stevia illegal for well over a decade, most likely to protect the profits of aspartame, a chemical sweetener that failed safety testing and was pushed through the FDA approval process by Donald Rumsfeld.

Stevia is a safe, natural sweetener with zero calories, making it a strong competitor with aspartame, Sucralose and other chemical sweeteners. That's why the FDA kept it out of the food supply for so long, even going so far as to order the destruction of recipe books that offered stevia recipes.

The FDA has also routinely seized stevia products at the border, claiming they were "mislabeled" as sweeteners when they should have been labeled only as nutritional supplements.
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