A bioeconomy perspective for natural sweetener Stevia.

Rosaria Ciriminna,Mario Pagliaro,Mario Pecoraino,Francesco Meneguzzo

doi:10.31220/osf.io/7bcvr

Rosaria Ciriminna, Mario Pagliaro + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.31220/osf.io/7bcvr

Copy DOI

Abstract

Abstract The "sweet herb" (El Caa-ehe) used by the Guaraní tribes living in the forests of today's eastern Paraguay and southern Brazil, is rapidly emerging as natural sweetener alternative both to sugar and synthetic sweeteners, well beyond Japan where it is widely used since the mid 1970s. Stevia rebaudiana (Bertoni) Bertoni contains in its leaves highly sweet steviol glycosides which do not release calories in the human body and do not cause an increase in blood sugar levels. The glycoside most abundant in the leaves, stevioside, has high reactive oxygen species quenching activity originating several health beneficial properties. Rapid advances in green chemistry technology allowing the production of Stevia extracts devoid of liquorice-like after-taste, and their high chemical and physical stability enabling use in baked and beverage food products support large scale uptake of Stevia as natural sweetener. Addressing bioeconomy aspects ranging from production through product formulation, this study identifies the last obstacles to overcome prior to general adoption of S. rebadudiana as health beneficial sweetener.

Highlights

Named by naturalist Moisés Santiago Bertoni after botanist and physician Pedro Jaime Esteve who first described the plant found in eastern Paraguay in mid 16th century, and incorporating the name of Paraguayan chemist Ovidio Rebaudi who in 1899 conducted the first chemical analyses aimed to clarify the origin of the sweet taste upon request of Bertoni,[1] Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni (Bertoni) has rapidly become the main natural sweetener used across the world
In the safety review of Stevia that in 1992 accompanied a GRAS affirmation petition Douglas Kinghorn wrote: “the vast majority of the scientific safety evaluation studies which have been performed to date endorse the use of Stevia rebaudiana leaf and stevioside as sucrose substitutes
Remarking how “consumers can be provided with the best nutritional knowledge and palatable wellbalanced food options and still make choices that are not good for their physical health” de la Peña has noted how in the history of artificial sweeteners adoption in the US “the many failures of nutrition education in the 20th century suggest that we are missing something important in how we think about the relationship between consumer desire and healthy food consumption...as these foods promise to deliver more than fullness

Summary

Introduction

Named by naturalist Moisés Santiago Bertoni after botanist and physician Pedro Jaime Esteve who first described the plant found in eastern Paraguay in mid 16th century, and incorporating the name of Paraguayan chemist Ovidio Rebaudi who in 1899 conducted the first chemical analyses aimed to clarify the origin of the sweet taste upon request of Bertoni,[1] Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni (Bertoni) has rapidly become the main natural sweetener used across the world. Scholars in Brazil demonstrated how a simple pretreatment of the leaves of S. rebaudiana with a high content of rebaudioside A with absolute ethanol increases the yield and purity level of stevia sweetener, significanly enhancing the sensory characteristics of the steviol glycoside extract.[27] In brief, the treatment of stevia leaves with ethanol before the extraction process of steviol glycosides selectively removes substances such as phenolic compounds and flavonoids, which contribute to the residual bitter taste in the final product.

Results

Conclusion