Stevia makes me angry
By: Claudia Stack
Tags: Covid 19, Diet, Food, Self Improvement, Life

A random bit of COVID shutdown wisdom

Photo by Joseph Gonzalez on Unsplash

Recently, I have heard people refer to pounds gained due to inactivity at home as “the COVID 19”, just as people used to talk about “the freshmen ten” (the latter effect presumably caused by limitless dining hall mac and cheese). I have not gained 19 pounds, or even close, but I do notice that my fluffitude has been slightly enhanced since our COVID stay at home period.

In my regular life as a teacher, I am on my feet most of the day. Right now, however, I sit glued to my laptop all day doing online teaching and the endless accountability spreadsheets that go with it. My son and I both have asthma, so we are not going to the gym (which was closed anyway for most of the past two months). Then again, I do make sure we get outside every day to walk, ride bikes, and take care of our animals.

Of course, we have all also heard by now that weight is determined in large part by our diet, and impacted only marginally by our level of activity. The funny thing is, I only eat whole foods, and that moderately. We even produce some of our own food — fresh eggs, greens and blueberries — and taking care of our little farm means I am active outside every day, rain or shine.

In addition, allergies that I developed relatively late in life to yeast and gluten mean I eat absolutely NO pasta, bread, or baked goods of any kind.

So my added COVID-19 fluffiness frustrated me. I decided to try keeping my blood sugar lower by changing one of my few indulgences — coffee made with real sugar. I enjoy turbindado (raw sugar), but I decided to try Stevia instead. Unfortunately, I had only a faint memory of a lesson I learned a few years ago: For reasons I never understood before, Stevia puts me in a bad mood.

Apparently not having learned the lesson well enough last time, I plowed ahead and purchased a more expensive brand of Stevia than I had used previously. I thought perhaps that the cheaper brand had additives that had made me feel bad, or was made through an inferior process.

Nope. Bottom line, Stevia still makes me angry, although the bad mood came on so gradually it left me feeling unsure of its real origins. Was there a real reason to be angry when my brother-in-law trashed a family house, causing my husband (the executor of the estate) many hours of extra work? Yes, that seemed like a real reason to be upset. But would it have affected me so much in a Stevia-free state of mind? Probably not. I am generally easy-going. So brooding on this was out of character.

Then, my 19-year-old son left dirty dishes on the counter, instead of rinsing them and putting them in the dishwasher. Inconsiderate? Sure. Worth being upset over? No. Yet, I marched up the stairs and demanded he come fix it NOW.

By this time, it was Thursday. I had just started my Stevia experiment on Monday of the same week, but I had to admit defeat. It wasn’t worth it. Belatedly, I decided to do a little research, and came across a 2014 study in the journal Current Science that indicated Stevia may depress the central nervous system.

In addition, a 2018 study in the journal Nutricion Hospitalaria concluded that: “These results show that sweeteners as stevia or splenda may lead to the onset of unfavorable changes in dopamine”

Which seemed the likely connection to my mood issue… drumroll please…because, as WebMD notes, “Dopamine plays a role in how we feel pleasure.”

So, I ended my little experiment with Stevia . As it turns out, Stevia might not have helped me to keep my blood sugar level lower anyway, since some studies show that artificial sweeteners actually cause weight gain in the long term.

As I heard the gifted horse trainer and communicator Buck Brannaman remark more than once: “If what you’re doing isn’t working, be smart enough to quit.” Thus I stopped using Stevia, and resolved to trust my own experience more in the future.