if by chance you're watching your blood
sugar and you want to be prepared for
the days ahead stay with us in the next
few minutes because we're going to talk
about one of the easiest ways you can
prepare by growing your own stevia so
stay with us
[Music]
stevia is one of those miraculous plants
that we've all heard of by now but very
few of us have probably tried to grow
our own in actuality this plant right
here is very easy to grow especially in
your own if you're in a warmer climate
so those of you who are in zones 10 and
above have got it made but the cool
thing is is that this perennial also
grows fantastic as a house plant inside
your home so you could actually grow it
all year round and have yourself a
sweetener that is in fact 300 times
sweeter than traditional table sugar so
that's why I call this a miracle plant
because who would have ever guessed that
something so small and simple with just
little leaves which I love you can
actually pull off and put in your mouth
right now and taste that 300 times
sweeter than sugar it's literally that
way right off the plant this is an
amazing thing that each one of us should
learn how to grow you can order seeds
online there are a number of different
places now that carry them you want to
try to make sure that you get organic
stevia seeds and really it should be
somewhere around five bucks for you to
buy about 50 seeds that should be plenty
this is a perennial that you can have a
few seeds maybe not work for you before
you get some good thriving stevia and
then when it gets cooler in the later
months of the year go ahead and just
pull it inside and get it in a sunny
window the one thing I've noticed is
that it does love water so I have to
water it almost every day or every
couple of days just to keep it nice and
thriving but I can use the the leaves
right off of this plant to sweeten my
tea and coffee and such in the morning
the one thing I have noticed is that if
I use it raw like this it actually goes
I go through it really fast because it
just the sweetness kind of is trapped in
that moisture that's still in those
leaves so it actually helps us if we can
harvest this and that's why I'm showing
it to you today because we're gonna
harvest some right now and take it into
our food dehydrator if we dry out these
leaves they actually go a lot farther
because then when I put it into my tea
to steep it actually releases all of
that wonderful sweetness and stretches a
whole lot further so let's do that right
now I've brought in this nice little
batch and I've washed it up real well at
the sink thankfully the bugs don't get
it too bad so there wasn't any problem
there but I get it all washed off and
take off any of the little black edges
that might be anywhere on it we just
want the best leaves and incidentally
the sweetness is primarily in the leaves
I am dehydrating the stems as I've got
them but really I already know the
answer to my experiment and that is I
know that the sweetness is in the leaves
I just want to see how sweet the stems
are so I'm dehydrating a few for fun but
just keep in mind the sweetness you'll
find is all in the leaves now I'm gonna
get this all filled up
all the trays until I've got every leaf
accounted for here and then I'm gonna
just set that a hydrator at about a
hundred degrees Fahrenheit or somewhere
around forty degrees Celsius and just
kind of watch it but let it sit for a
few hours it dries very quickly and is
nothing to worry about
but it will make those nice and small
and easy for us to crumble up once we
have got them nicely dehydrated in just
a few hours so just keep an eye on it
and I would say expect it to take about
three or four hours at the temperatures
that I've mentioned all right this has
gone for about three hours and I've
turned off the food dehydrator I'm going
to remove the lid here and take a look
and
beautifully we have got a wonderful
batch of finished stevia leaves I might
have had them done in just two hours if
I had said it higher but what you want
to look for is these perfectly dried
leaves I don't want them to be brown
which they're not but they will
literally just crush right beneath my
fingers crumble perfectly up just as I
would like them to and I'll put that
right there
but let me just talk you through what I
would do to process these at this point
so the easy way is this if you've got a
little coffee grinder about like this
that you allocate just for all of your
herbs it's perfect for this kind of
thing because not only can you adjust
how coarse or fine you grind it up but
also it lets you adjust by how many how
full you have it and how much product
you're wanting to grind up in the first
place so it turns itself off it knows
exactly how long to get it just right
and that is a wonderful little addition
however it's also good to have a back-up
plan in the case that you didn't have
electricity and so mortar and pestle
works just as well these are so nice and
crispy that they're going to crumble
perfectly in a little mortar and pestle
or even right under your fingertips if
you wanted to just hold your hands over
a plate you could crumble them all up by
hand
what you come up with at the end is
gonna look about like this product right
here at the bottom here and you notice
I've done this pretty coarsely now I
could put it back in here and put it on
the fine setting and it would pulverize
it into a perfect powder and that's
wonderful if I'm gonna bake with it
however for me personally most often my
stevia is used to sweeten all of my
drinks and liquids so to do that I like
to infuse them and if I had added a
powder form it wouldn't be quite what I
wanted
so my handy tool that I use often is the
little tea infuser
tea fob I can fill it up with these just
as though they were tea leaves and let
it steep in my tea or coffee or drink
just as long as it needs to to make it
the perfect sweetness all right now I
want to hear your story
if you have grown stevia before share
with us your adventures and what your
favorite recipes are or how you like to
process yours but take a minute share
this video with someone else that it
might bless and I hope that you'll take
the time to write in to us let us know
what your favorite things are to do with
this and we'll see you next time
[Music]
hey before you go let me share a quick
minute of Scripture this is actually out
of proverbs chapter 22 verse 1 it says a
good name is to be chosen rather than
great riches and favor is much better
than silver or gold now go spread the
word
[Music]
you