Last year Aurélien Azam blogged about Stevia in his post, Can we find all the tastes we like in the Wild? He mentions Stevia in it and if you don’t remember it, then Coca Cola will try to change that. Stevia is the plant behind the new Coke variety, Life.

Coca Cola Life and Death
The marketing department at Coca Cola are about to discover that if the green bottle is called ‘Life’ there’s an obvious name for the red bottle.

Stevia rebaudiana leaves are complicated sugar factories. Initially they import carbohydrates, but as leaf area increases photosynthesis means they start producing more sugars to supply the rest of the plant. The key chemicals are Steviol glycosides. These are, for the same concentration, around 300 times more sweet than sugar. The exciting feature is that human body cannot produce any calories from these sugars. For marketing, it’s the fact that it’s a plant that’s the chemical factory that’s news. If it’s made in a plant then you can label it: From Natural Sources.

But this is one of those situations where natural is probably not a synonym for good.