FDA Offers No Objection to GRAS Status for SweetLeaf® Stevia
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has reportedly declined to send an objection letter to Arizona-based Wisdom Natural Brands™ concerning its request for generally recognized as safe (GRAS) status for its stevia sweetener, SweetLeaf®. Considered the gold standard in GRAS rulings, the lack of an FDA objection has confirmed earlier determinations by two independent scientific panels that reviewed SweetLeaf’s® GRAS status in March 2008. The company first lodged a notification of GRAS status with FDA for a “general purpose sweetener in various food categories” in March 2009. See FoodNavigator-USA.com, September 2, 2009.
In a related matter, a Los Angeles Times article titled “Sweet stuffed: We eat lots (and lots of kinds) of sweeteners. What’s in them?” offers a primer of common and not-so-common sweeteners such as sucrose, glucose, fructose, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, lactose, honey, and agave syrup. “America’s sweet tooth is growing,” writes Wendy Hansen. “Like many other mammals, we are hooked on sugar because it is packed with energy and our bodies have evolved ways of encouraging us to consume more of it. The trouble is, foods and beverages with added sugars are plentiful today and usually cheaper on a per-calorie basis than vegetables or naturally sweet fruits.”
She claims that “passions burn fiercely” about sweeteners: “Some people are convinced that high fructose corn syrup has properties that link it to the fattening of America– partly for that reason, today regular sugar is almost achieving health-food status in some circles.” See The Los Angeles Times, August 31, 2009.
