Stevia

As part of an initiative to improve my overall health, I’m attempting to drink a lot less soda. Two Coke Zero (cans) a day isn’t all that bad, I don’t think, but it’s still an unnecessary drain on my wallet, my teeth, and many other things. There’s no sugar in Coke Zero but who knows what’s in all of the artificial sweeteners.

While researching soda alternatives and sorting through the usual boring “tea, juice, water” results I found an interesting one: stevia.

Stevia is a natural sweetener found in the leaves of the stevia herb that has been widely used around the world for centuries but has never had much exposure in the U.S. There is a crazy long back-story dealing with the FDA and the artificial sweetener lobbies and special interest groups. Long story short, it has now been approved for use as a “food product” and no longer has to be labeled as a “dietary supplement”.

As I was planning a trip to Wal-Mart (for the usual boring tea and juice), I wrote “stevia” on my list, not really thinking I’d find it there. But among the sugar and artificial sweeteners sat a product named Truvia. Among inspection I found that it is a stevia extract developed and sold by Cargill. They isolated the sweetest part of the stevia leaf and turned it in to a powder.

I bought a box.

The first thing I tried it with was with ice water and lemon. Not bad. It sweetened up the usual water/lemon with just one packet. It does not dissolve as easily as sugar, though, and needs some brisk stirring.

The second thing I did was sprinkle some on a mango. Very good. The Truvia definitely has a different taste than sugar but it’s very sweet and quite good. I will put some on my cereal and in my tea, I expect that to be good too. I image stevia sprinkled on peaches and cream would be delicious.

Both Coca-Cola and PepsiCo have products in other nations that use stevia instead of sugar, saccharin, or aspertame. Now that stevia has been approved in the U.S. I expect we will see some new spin-offs based on it in due time. Those varieties may be better than what we have today but soda is still loaded with stuff that is not healthy for us.

I think the better idea is to wean myself off of caffeine by drinking green tea at first, then going to just 100% juice or water.

SDPB and PBS are fantastic!

On Friday night I found out that SDPB was airing a program featuring a band that I really like and have seen live many times. I had Windows Media Center record it but unfortunately the weather was awful, my OTA signal suffered, and I came out with a choppy recording.

I sent out a quick email last night at 9:02pm to programming@sdbp.org asking if it would re-air at some point. I got a response 13 minutes later from Bob on his mobile letting me know that it will be on again in a few months and that the video will be posted to their website shortly. Wow! In fact, he CC’d  Kent, the show’s producer, who then responded today saying that it will be up soon and then followed-up with a link to the video.

Would you ever expect service like that from a company like Comcast or Time Warner or Dish Network? Have you ever received a reply to an inquiry about a gadget you bought or a problem you’re having with your computer in such a timely and accurate fashion?

Pay attention, cable companies. These guys personally responded about a stupid little question I had and I’m not paying them a dime!

Well, until now, because I just joined Friends of SDPB and gave them some money. Not a lot, about what a month of cable would cost me. In return I’ve recorded and enjoyed dozens of hours of great educational and entertainment television with minimal advertising. I will be donating every year from now on.

PBS and NPR are always ahead of the game and I’m grateful SDPB exists to make it available to all of us. Enjoy your public broadcasting!

By the way, here’s a link to the video if you’re curious. Check out their full video portal for both local and national great PBS programming.

Zune?

Question on a Microsoft survey:

“Which of the following best describes how frequently you use your non-video or video capable MP3 Player (e.g., iPod Shuffle, Creative Zen Stone, iPod Nano, Creative Zen Vision, etc.)?”

Where’s the Zune?!

My Online Shopping Routine

I buy a lot of stuff online and whenever I’m purchasing something I go through a routine to find the cheapest price available.

Whether I know the exact item I’m looking for or just have an idea in mind, my search starts at Amazon. They consistently have one of the best prices available with free shipping on almost everything over $25.00 and the customer reviews can’t be beat.

Once I have a base price on Amazon I’ll open a new tab and search for the exact item on Bing. Their cashback program offers average to spectacular amounts of cash back in the form of direct deposit, PayPal, Amazon Payments, or paper check once you have $5.00 of available cashback.

Bing’s shopping search sometimes finds the exact item and will show you every store that has the item available, whether there is free shipping, and the total price after your cashback.

Sometimes, though, Bing won’t find the exact item and you’re left with subpar results. The next step is to search for the item on Google Shopping to find a list of stores that have the item in stock. Once I know the stores with the item available, I go back to Bing Cashback Stores and browse through the list of stores I found on Google to find out what kind of cashback they offer. A few quick calculations and I know whether I can beat Amazon or not.

If I can’t beat Amazon, the search is over and I order through the big A. Using my credit card I get 1% cashback on all purchases.

If I can beat Amazon, it’s a matter of finding which store offers the best price after Bing cashback and shipping.

Once I determine which store I’m ordering from, I dig around for coupons or discounts available. I check RetailMeNot, FatWallet forums, SlickDeals forums, and just a plain ol’ Google search. You’d be surprised what codes can be found by just spending a couple minutes hunting.

Good luck with your deal hunting and never pay full retail!

“…from a touch-tone phone”

Remember when we used to hear that all the time? I just heard it on the news. Are there people out there using rotary phones??