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On Wed, 06 Feb 2008 05:24:53 GMT, "Jan Drew"
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http://www.naturalnews.com/z022571.html

NaturalNews.com printable article
Originally published January 31 2008
FDA Threatened Celestial Tea Company over Use of Natural Sweetener Stevia
by David Gutierrez


(NaturalNews) The FDA has sent a warning letter to the Hain Celestial Group,
instructing the natural and organic food producer to relabel certain
products that contain the sweetener stevia. The letter concerned the
Celestial Zingers To Go tea and drink mix products, which the FDA charges
are being labeled and marketed as food products, even though an ingredient
they contain -- the stevia herb -- has not been approved for use in foods in
the United States.


Stevia, derived from a South American plant, has become popular as a
sweetener because it has 300 times the sweetness of table sugar but almost
no impact on blood glucose levels. Its taste is said to have a slower onset
than that of sugar and to last longer.


Stevia has been approved for use in food and beverage products in a number
of countries, including Brazil, Canada, China and Japan, but to date the FDA
has only approved it as an ingredient in dietary supplements.


In response to the warning letter, Hain Celestial Group removed the term
"iced tea mix" from all labels of the products in question, and made the
words "herbal supplement" much more prominent.


In light of the increasing popularity of stevia and the fact that companies
like Hain Celestial have apparently been trying to get around regulations of
its use, the FDA said that it expects to soon receive a petition to approve
the sweetener for use in foods. Reportedly, both the Coca-Cola Company and
Cargill are interested in producing stevia-sweetened products, with
Coca-Cola having filed 24 patent applications related to the sweetener.


But the FDA said that current information is not sufficient to prove stevia
safe as an ingredient for food.


"Data and information necessary to support the safe use have been lacking,"
the FDA's letter to Hain Celestial read. "In fact, literature reports have
raised safety concerns about the use of stevia, including concerns about
control of blood sugar and the effects of reproductive, cardiovascular and
renal systems."


Consumer health advocate Mike Adams, a long-time supporter of stevia,
disagrees. "The FDA has been stalling on stevia approval for well over a
decade in order to protect the profits of aspartame," Adams said. "Stevia is
safely used around the world by hundreds of millions of consumers with
absolutely no problems, while aspartame is tied to seizures, blindness,
headaches and other serious neurological problems. The FDA once ordered the
destruction of books containing stevia recipes. That's how desperate this
criminal organization is to protect the profit racket of aspartame," Adams
concluded.