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Aug 11, 2008 9:16 am US/Central
Cargill Natural Sweetener Put To The Taste Test
(WCCO)
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Native to Paraguay, stevia looks and grows like basil, but chew on a stevia leaf and you're in for a surprise.
CBS
For four years, the Cargill folks have kept mum about a plant. It wasn't just any plant, but stevia. Native to Paraguay, stevia looks and grows like basil, but chew on a stevia leaf and you're in for a surprise.
"It's kind of a pleasant taste," explained Cargill agronomist Dirk Reif. "It is sweet, yes!"
Cargill has turned the sweet leaves of the stevia plant into their new sweetener,
Truvia. Reif traveled all over the world comparing stevia plants.
The list of places he visited would make a travel buff jealous -- "South America, Paraguay, Argentina, Brazil, Asia, Japan, South Korea, India, China, Australia, New Zealand," he said. Reif knows how to taste stevia. He also knows how to keep secrets.
"You just don't talk to people about what you're working on, you know, 'I'm working on a new sweetener project,' basically and enough said."
Cargill's stevia project had several different code names -- Lancelot, cobalt, alfalfa, hula, and so on. Reif admitted he couldn't even remember each of the code names the project was given.
Cargill health and nutrition president Marcelo Montero smiled as he explained the reason for the first project name. "Let me tell you about Lancelot, is because some people in the industry dubbed this as the holy grail of sweeteners."
That prediction sounds like an exaggeration, but it might not be. Partnering with Coca Cola, Cargill turned stevia into Truvia, a product that's natural, sweet and calorie-free. Montero says Truvia is in a category by itself.
In the past, there have been concerns about stevia and its possible effect on fertility and kidney function. Cargill's research found Truvia doesn't affect reproductive health or organ function.
"We followed FDA processes, so therefore Truvia today is safe for consumption in the United States," said Montero.
Cargill is currently growing stevia in Asia, South America and the United States.
"A lot of the early work was just taking the leaves off the different plants and you just taste," said Reif.
The generic name for Truvia is rebiana. Cargill says it's made from the sweetest part of the stevia leaf.
The Cargill/Coke team figured out which stevia varieties were exceptionally sweet and which ones were less so. When asked which varieties rose to the top of the sweetness scale, Reif smiled and said, "Those are still a secret, back to that secret project."
We conducted some secret work of our own. After sprinkling strawberries with sugar, Splenda and Truvia, we asked 10 people on Nicollet Mall to taste and tell. They've never heard of Truvia, but they liked it. It was, in fact, the winner of our unscientific sweetener taste test. Six of our ten tasters said it was best or tied for best. Some of them even thought Truvia was sugar.
Whitney Gale said, "I'd probably fall for it, and if you did it in cooking, I probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference at all."
You can order Truvia online. It costs about 10 cents per packet. It won't hit grocery stores until this fall. Coke is expected to roll out a beverage sweetened with Truvia sometime soon. Cargill says there will be many new products containing Truvia in the future.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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