Truvia Research
Before it made the decision to introduce Truvia as a natural sweetener in the market, Cargill embarked on a series of stringent safety evaluation procedures that were developed in collaboration with eminent food scientists, research bodies and regulatory authorities. What the company wanted do was confirm the positive findings of previous studies, and resolve some unanswered questions.
It’s difficult to understand the findings of rebiana research without a complete understanding of stevia, rebiana, stevia components, and their relationship to each other.
The term Stevia refers to a combination of several compounds of the stevia leaf. Stevia is available in either powder or liquid form, and contains several compounds mixed together, and not just the sweetest tasting ones. The sweet components of the leaf of the stevia plant are known as steviol glycosides. Steviol glycosides are of many kinds, but the most abundant kinds are stevioside and rebaudioside A, which happens to be the sweetest tasting of steviol glycosides.
Rebiana consists of 97% rebaudioside A. Truvia is a high quality form of rebaudioside A, that has been purified to food grade quality.
Earlier Research
Several studies have been conducted over the past fifty years to evaluate stevia and stevia components. These studies have not resulted in the formation of a consistent profile for stevia and its components. Studies were conducted on an unrefined and mixed extract of stevia, and this made it hard for researchers to attribute any findings to any substance. Many attempts have been made over the years, to obtain FDA approval for stevia as a food additive. However, approval has been denied because the agency was dissatisfied with answers to questions, regarding stevia’s quality and composition.
Rebiana Research
When Cargill undertook its safety evaluation of rebiana, the company’s objectives were to establish rebiana’s safety for use as a sweetener, to establish the relevance of established stevioside data to rebaudioside A, and also to provide answers to unresolved questions about rebiana. Studies that have been conducted on rebaudioside A have been limited to smaller ones that focused on safety and metabolism. Stevioside however, had been researched extensively. Because the process of breakdown of rebaudioside A in the body is the same as for stevioside, researchers were able to apply the results of the studies of stevioside to their safety evaluations of rebiana.
These safety evaluation studies of rebiana have confirmed the positive findings of earlier studies. Questions that have been unresolved earlier were answered, tying up several loose ends. Cargill hopes that these findings will help rebiana meet FDA standards, and make it accessible to consumers across the world.