Why is this sweetener banned?

Imagine a plant so sweet it makes sugar taste positively bitter. What's more, it's completely free of calories, is a useful tonic for the body, can reduce high blood pressure and may even help diabetics control their blood sugar levels. It would be reasonable to expect health food stores up and down the country to be selling stocks of this apparent miracle of nature faster than they can get them in.

Instead, they are barred by the European Union from selling the plant, called stevia, as a food or food ingredient because of concerns over its safety. According to the Food Standards Agency, there is evidence from animal tests that, in high doses, stevia increases the risk of certain cancers as well as male infertility.

Supporters insist stevia is not only natural, but also safe. They allege that it is in the interests of companies in the artificial sweeteners industry to keep stevia off the shelves.

Leslie Kenton, writer, novelist and broadcaster, and daughter of legendary jazz musician Stan Kenton, has been using stevia for years as a natural sweetener and is frustrated by what she sees as the obstacles erected by regulatory authorities. "It's been used in other countries for years. It has been legal in Canada for over 20 years and you can buy it in every health food store in America. Yet here it's illegal to sell it as a food, or a herb, or anything else. The authorities are being very strongly influenced by the large sweetener manufacturers to not licence it. I use stevia any time I want anything sweetened. When I am in Australia, New Zealand or Japan, I make sure I buy some in granulated form. It looks like sugar but you only need one-tenth of the amount." Growing naturally in Paraguay and Brazil, the stevia plant has been a useful ally to native Indians for many generations. It's leaves contain a chemical called stevioside, that is said to be between 250 and 300 times sweeter than sucrose.

Yet clinical evidence is emerging that some traditional medicinal claims for stevioside may hold true. A study published in the British Journal of Pharmacology in 2000 revealed that stevioside did lower blood pressure.

According to Leslie Kenton, the dosage needed to have any detrimental effect on health makes a mockery of the argument that stevia is unsafe.

"The amount you would need would be impossible for anyone to eat. There's no evidence that stevia is dangerous, yet there's evidence that chemical sweeteners can cause a lot of emotional imbalance in children. The powers-that-be are very concerned about protecting us from the dangers of stevia but they're not the least bit concerned about aspartame."

Dr Richard Cottrell, director of the Sugar Bureau, a body funded by the leading sugar and sweetener manufacturers, vehemently denies any allegation that the industry has been lobbying for stevia to be excluded from the market.

"It's complete rubbish. The sugar industry would never get involved in that sort of thing," he says. "If stevia is a food, then it will have to go through the normal clearance process of the Food Standards Agency, which is completely impartial to any commercial interests. There is a tendency among people who think that 'anything natural is good' to believe that stevia must, therefore, be good for you. The opposite is sometimes the case."