Hi! my name is Brelya an this article is about my experiences with stevia and cranberry juice when it comes to UTI’s and weight loss.
I was born in a small village in the Philippinies – ‘Bicol’. Quite a neat place, even exotic if you ask me. I always had urinary tract infections as a growing woman, until back then in the late eighties, when I was exposed to what later become my favorite food on planet earth – cranberries!
Cranberries?
You see, it is pretty much a myth that cranberries can treat UTIs (urinary tract infections), as all science researches and literature show zero correlation (*1). The fact is that prevention is far easier, and this is one area where cranberries prevail (*2). Today we know, thanks to recent researches, that the cranberries actually prevent the bacteria from attaching to the walls of the urinary tract, and thus helping our body on its way to prevent this infection. People always used to believe, even doctors, that the urine becomes so acidic due to the cranberries, which ends up killing the bacteria, an assumption that was later found out as dead wrong.
Do you simply eat them raw? They are too sour!
I prefer my fruit in the form of a juice. Cranberry juice benefits are just the same as any other source of Cranberries, but a major problem for people is its taste. Many people, including me, find it to be a little too sour for direct consumption, and thus the need to sweeten it evolved. I was using sugar at first, but stopped using it once I have read about its disastrous nature and potential side effects and body damage. I later moved on to artificial sweeteners, which proved to be just as bad as processed white sugar, and then I found out another hidden gem in the word of tribal mouth – Stevia.
What exactly is Stevia?
Stevia is one special plant. This amazing sweet leaf was “born” in South America, on the areas of Brazil and Paraguay, and was consumed by the locals for thousands over thousands of years. Recently, the western world was introduced to this plant, and the sugar industry felt threatened immediately, as it seems.
I started enjoying its benefits and do not regret cutting back on sugar or artificial sweeteners. I feel awesome, and my cranberry juice feels sweeter than ever. There seems to be some people over the internet who experienced some sort of side effects using Stevia, but the non-complaining people vastly outnumber them, so it seems to me that it is just a correlation, not causation.
I put a small amount of Stevia in my juice, usually around a droplet or two from an extracted source, and that seals the deal. I get both the benefits of cranberry juice and the benefits of Stevia leaf as well. I am in a perfect and perpetual mode of UTI prevention, and never experienced this dreaded condition again since years ago.
I highly recommend you to try this combination for overall health in general (I guess, in case you are not a woman and not interesting in solving any feminine issues.. yay), and more specifically if you want to help your body prevent bacteria from growing in your urinary tracts and give you some troubles in the form of infections.
Author: Brelya Julia Allessandra, B.Sc Nutritional Sciences. Check out FreshBeetle.com for more interesting subjects.
Scientific Reference
*1 – Buxton M, Barbosa-Cesnik C, Brown MB, Foxman B, Zhang L, DeBusscher J. Clinical Infectious Diseases. 2011;52(1):23–30.
*2 – Effect of the cranberry juice on the presence of bacterial organisms and white blood cells in the urine of elder women. What is the role of bacterial adhesion? Avorn J. Adv Exp Med Biol. 1996 ; 408 : 185-6.
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