It usually comes in small tea-bag like packets in a box, is useful for sprinkling on top of cereal and other foods. The leaf particles do not dissolve, so kids might take a little time getting used to the floating leaves in their cereal. The concentrated white powder is 300 times as sweet as sugar. I'd like to know how to use the herb as a sweetener. I'd especially like to know if it can be used as a sweetener in baked goods, such as cookies.
Stevia comes from a shrub native to Paraguay, Stevia rebaudiana.
It also grows in Brazil and Argentina, and is now widely cultivated in China. The leaves have been used for centuries by native peoples to make sweet teas, or to sweeten other foods, with no evidence of adverse reactions. In Japan, Brazil, and other countries, people use the extracted sweet principle, called stevioside, as a table sweetener. It tastes faintly of licorice and is many, many times sweeter than sucrose. Stevia has minimal calories and is reputed to have beneficial effects on fat absorption and blood pressure.