FDA Threatened Celestial Tea Company over Use of Natural Sweetener Stevia

I just discovered NaturalNews.com - http://www.naturalnews.com/
I particularly liked the 'health' section – and the article Natural Tooth Cure for Curing Cavities and Preventing Root Canals, which shows that cavities can be healed through nutrition.
And, under the heading of "politics" there is a must-read article:
The Coming Financial Collapse of America (and Why Today's Market Bloodbath is Only a Small Taste of Things to Come...)

But, I digress, –this post is about the herbal sweetener Stevia.
I use Stevia. It is said to be 300 times sweeter than sugar. I use it in presesrves and baking.
I use it in combination with fructose - because its twice as sweet as sucrose, therefore I only need half the quantity. Sometimes I use a quarter recommended sugar and add stevia. It's great stuff!

But, of course, the FDA must deal with commercial concerns. Read  on...

(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.

Read the entire story here: