Little green plant vs. chemical sweetener

by Jen B
(Washington)

I've been growing Stevia for about half a year now. I let my children pluck off leaves and eat it as a treat without any worries. I've been using stevia powder for nearly a decade and have no concerns with using this food plant, just as I have no concerns with dandelion greens.
When my daughter was about five years old she would get an idea in her head that would worry her. She once asked me what we would do if we couldn't go to the store for food. I told her we would pick and eat the dandelions. I feel just as comfortable with eating stevia leaves.
To the contrary, I don't let my children even chew gum with aspartame in it. When nutrasweet first came out, it was everywhere! My family readily baught up soda that was sweetened with the stuff and my father started getting headaches from it. Being a kid at the time, I wasn't allowed to drink a lot of soda so thankfully my mother removed all nutrasweet items from our diet before I suffered any build up in my system.
A word of warning if you want to grow stevia though. I couldn't keep my cat from eating the plant and it upset his tummy the first day he chowed down on it (I don't know how much of it he ate - he really liked it). Also, it is very easy to grow from a seedling. I haven't even tried raising it from seed as I've read it is hard to do.