Has anyone ever heard of stevia or xylitol sweeteners?

I was going to try splenda (to sweeten my tea), but was surfing the internet & found this article (and many others).   http://www.womentowomen.com/nutritionandweightloss/splenda.a spx Scroll halfway down to this particular paragraph: "Stevia and sorbitol — natural alternatives to artificial sweeteners" I did a google on stevia & xylitol that were mentioned & have heard of no side effects & stevia in particular is widely used in south america & japan.   I thought I'd give them a try, just out of curiousity. Has anyone else here tried them?   Lisa

Ya know the executive director where i use to work used something like this.  I'm almost wondering if it was stevia.  whatever it was she got it at a natural pantry type store and loved it.  i remember seeing it at the time and thought it was on the spendy side so i didn't try it.  

it is something to think about.  i know i for one eat a LOT of splenda.  it makes you wonder how safe it really is. 

I've had sorbitol in gum and toothpaste. No strong opinion on it - no aftertaste, at least calorie free.  The stevia it seems we did buy a tea once that had it in it. I swear DH had a medication that had that too - a cholesterol drug??? I'll have to ask him about that. My take on the whole artificial sweetener thing is, in general, the foods that have alots of it are generally not the foods one should be choosing anyway (jams, drinks, desserts). I try harder to choose to eat less of the real thing on occasion. On the other hand, people who have a hard time getting down plain old water really have to lean on the drinsk with it, so it has a place. Artifical sweteners are the most widely studied food additive and a person woul dhave to ingest so much to cause harm that it is highly unlikely.  A lady at work drinks, I am not kidding here - a gallon of diet pepsi every day.  I would think twice about that type of thing myself.

I drink 60 oz of water a day.  My downfall is that I also love 3 glasses of ice tea a day (would love more, but limit to 3-lol).  And I use 3t of sugar per glass, which works out to about 55 grams of carbs a day.  I incorporate & allow it in my diet plan, but would sure be nice to lower my carbs a bit.  So, I just figured I'd try some sort of additive (but not increase the amount of tea that I'm currently drinking). Lisa

I saw a Stevia sweetner at a Diabetes Expo.  The lady demonstrating had several products from powder in packets to flavored liquids for teas and coffees.  She said that it's made from a leaf with no chemicals...she could have been selling us a line, I don't know.  I found some at a whole foods and organic supermarket and I like it.  It doesnt leave an aftertaste but to me it's actually sweeter than sugar so I use less.  I try not to use splenda or anything with aspartame.   Good luck! Tara