Joe Baldwin wants to cure Americans of their sugar habit.
The Pleasant Valley resident is a 1974 graduate of the Culinary Institute of America has owned his own restaurant and worked in a variety of food-related endeavors. He now wants Americans to adopt the South American herb stevia to replace sugar with a natural sweetener he says is both delicious and healthy. He said it is a promising product that could produce a cash crop for regional farmers.
“This is where stevia comes in handy,” said Baldwin. “It might be the product that brings cash back to farmers as well as replaces sugar in cookies.”
He recently received a shipment of some 3,000 stevia plants, which he is selling for $3 a piece to backyard gardeners and small farmers interested in trying the herb. He is also planting plots at some farms in the area, to begin the process of commercialization.
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Native to Paraguay and Brazil, but now grown as far away as Asia, stevia leaves have been used as a tabletop sweetener and a flavor enhancer in drinks for many years, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. In the past, the FDA has refused to certify stevia as safe for use as a food additive, but in December the FDA issued “letters of nonobjection” for such use of stevia.
Products that contain stevia can be purchased in many natural food stores under names such as SweetLeaf and SteviaPlus. There are some 240 varieties within the genus stevia with the species stevia rebaudania the plant used for sweetening.
Chemists isolated the glycosides that sweeten stevia, called stevioside and rebaudioside; they are about 300 times sweeter than sucrose and enjoy qualities such as stability in heat, pH stability and being non-fermentable. It is useful as a sweetener, in Japan for example, even Coca-Cola is a stevia-sweetened beverage. The herb is now cultivated throughout Asia. China is the world”™s largest exporter of stevioside.
Baldwin said there is no good reason America cannot get sweet on stevia as well, especially given epidemic of diabetes, heart disease and other ailments worsened by sugar consumption. “I hope eventually to make stevia a cash crop for the future of America and for wellness,” said Baldwin. “Maybe starting up companies that make food stuff out of it. So that if you can”™t have sugar and you want something that is healthy you can have a stevia product.”
But to Baldwin, a widower with four grown children, the real appeal of stevia is as simple as picking a leaf off a plant in one”™s own garden and using it to sweeten a cup of tea during the growing season in this climate, which ends in Mid-September. The plant grows to about 18 inches at maturity here and after harvesting the entire plant he said the leaves can be dried and used like oregano for baking and the stems boiled to make a syrup somewhat like maple syrup, “Put one eyedropper in coffee or tea and you”™ll probably have the best cup you”™ll ever have,” said Baldwin.
Recognition of the benefits of stevia is beginning to spread. “Lots of people are beginning to use it for sure,” said Les Hulcoop, an educator with Cornell Cooperative Extension. “And we definitely can grow it here in the Hudson Valley. However, it”™s only an annual crop here.” He said that biological fact created a disadvantage in terms of selling stevia in a global market, since the plant is a perennial in tropical climates.
There is little in the scientific literature to reveal what to expect when growing stevia in this climate. “The big question to me is do deer like it?” said Hulcoop, adding that if reports that it discourages deer are true, that is a plus for the herb on a number of fronts.
Hulcoop said the herb is an ideal addition to the bounty offered at farmer”™s markets and as a unique cash crop for local farmers. “It”™s another alternative and diversity is the key to agriculture now, growing lots of different crops.”
Baldwin said he aims beyond business success into the next step for reacquainting Americans with natural food.
“I hope to turn a buck by making sure stevia is so big that corporate interests will come and buy acres, like they do with corn,” said Baldwin. “But the most important part is to start people thinking about how simple it is for people to go with good food for making their own bodies strong from within.”
