No, not weed or the song by Black Sabbath (although both totally rule). I’m talking about the herb often called sweetleaf and more properly named stevia that I’ve recently started using it as a substitute for sugar.

I’ve been on a zero-sugar diet for the past week and will be continuing it all the way to till Monday of next week—fourteen days in all. Zero ice cream, fruit, chocolate, alcohol and grains of any kind. It’s not as bad as it sounds but not exactly fun either. Not being able to have that nightly glass of wine or bit of chocolate is especially depressing.

I’d been reading and hearing about stevia for a while now and had once tried some in powder form in some restaurant that I ordered coffee in somewhere. I found that while it was pretty sweet (about as much as artificial sweeteners), it had a weird aftertaste that was similar to saccharin. This aftertaste, I was told, was mostly due to the base powder used to bond the stevia extract and make the granules and if I didn’t like it, I could get the stuff in unadulterated liquid or syrup form.

So, last night I got to try it in liquid form via a bottle purchased from a Whole Foods. I made some coffee and put about half a dropper’s worth into my mug and found that it was definitely a lot smoother than the granulated version. It tastes somewhere in the middle of sugar and honey. I really liked the stuff, enough to pick up a bottle of the syrup form to stow in my desk at work. The syrup seems to taste even sweeter to me and I find that I need even less of it to sweeten things.

This morning, I killed a few minutes reading up on the plant. Here’s some factoids I thought were kind of neat:

• Japan currently consumes more stevia than any other country; it accounts for 40% of the sweetener market.
• An extract of stevia can be 250-300 times sweeter than sugar.
• Stevia extract contains zero calories, zero carbohydrates and a zero glycemic index.
• For centuries, the Guaraní tribes of Paraguay and Brazil used stevia, which they called ka’a he’ê (”sweet herb”), as a sweetener in yerba mate and medicinal teas for treating heartburn and other ailments.

Anyway, tree-hugging herbal-freaking hippie I am not. But, I do really like this stuff and it beats putting refined sugar or the artificial stuff in my food and drink. Not that I’ll stop eating sugar, but it’s a pretty cool alternative.