The Sweet Life

We Turned Over a Sweet New Leaf

Just over nine years ago, we made a radical decision: we gave sugar the boot. Yes, that sugar. The one in our organic coffee, our whole wheat cookies, our dark chocolate, our “healthy” granola bars, and, if we’re being honest, our tears during finals week.

Our breakup with sugar wasn’t dramatic—no slamming pantry doors or dumping molasses into the compost bin while sobbing (well, maybe once). It all started after a year-long fact-finding mission, which is a fancy way of saying we read a stack of research studies and books, viewed way-too-many tooth decay videos we cannot unsee, and generally ruined sugar-laden delicacies for ourselves forever.

Here’s what we learned: sugar doesn’t directly attack your teeth like a sugar-crazed Pac-Man, but it does throw a rave for the bacteria in your mouth. These bacteria eat the sugar, throw up acid (gross), and that acid lowers the pH in your mouth. A lower pH means your enamel starts to lose important minerals—like calcium and phosphate—and suddenly you’re wondering why your teeth feel like they’re disintegrating after every bite of chocolate chip mint ice cream.

So, we went all in. We kicked out the culprits:

• Sucrose: granulated sugar, cane sugar, beet sugar, brown sugar, confectioner’s sugar—basically everything that made dessert fun.
• Glucose: corn syrup, dextrose, honey (sorry, bees).
• Inverted sugars: such as Trimoline (which we still don’t really understand, but we decided to avoid inverted sugars anyway).
• Maltose: malt sugar and brown rice syrup—or as we like to call maltose, the sugar that shows up claiming it’s “here to support your digestive flow.” Spoiler: it’s not. It’s still sugar, just with a granola-scented disguise.
• Fructose: agave nectar, levulose—a.k.a. the sugars that move into the health food aisle like they’re better than everyone else. Agave acts like it’s pure and innocent because it comes from a cactus, but honestly, it’s just maple syrup wearing a fake mustache. And, Levulose? Never trust a sugar with a name that sounds like a prescription drug.
• And yes, even coconut sugar—which had been pretending to be the cool, natural cousin of the sugar family, showing up late to the party, clutching a mason jar, and insisting it’s “unrefined.” We wanted to believe in you, coconut sugar. But you’re still part of the problem.

The list covered all our usual go-to sweeteners and wiped our sugar-shelf bare. Our sweet tooth was left sitting alone in the corner, sad, bitter (ironically), and wondering what it did to deserve this.

Then Came the Dates (To keep our lonely sweet tooth company)

In our search for a tooth-friendly treat, we discovered dates—those wrinkled, sticky-sweet things that look like they’ve already been half-digested by a camel and yet somehow taste like brown sugar dipped in caramel and blessed by angels. Sweet, rich, and packed with flavor, for us dates are the candy of the produce aisle. Whether we were snacking on them straight from the bag, turning them into rich chocolate puddings, or chopping them up and spreading them on top of a millet sundae, they’d earned a permanent place in our pantry.

In fact, dates turned out to be dental MVPs! High in fiber? Check. Saliva-stimulating? You bet. Natural pH balancing? Absolutely. It’s like nature made candy and gave it a dental seal of approval.

Problem solved, right?

Almost.

Fast-forward to two years ago. We had a second revelation—this time, it came with a garden spade. See, our goal at Ridge Haven is Elegant Sustainability (which we define as “considering the long-term environmental and social impact of our choices, while providing for our own needs without giving up all that makes life beautiful and lovely”). One way we are meeting this goal is by growing most of our food. Unfortunately, dates won’t grow in USDA Hardiness Zone 7a. Trust us, we tried. Date palms do not like frost, passive-aggressive weather patterns, or the occasional surprise snowstorm in April.

Stevia is surprisingly easy to grow into a small bush with leaves that feel slightly sticky and smell faintly like Sour Apple Jelly Beans rolled in grass. If you live somewhere with mild summers and a semi-reliable watering system (e.g. clouds regularly finding their way to your garden), you’ll get a nice harvest—or, hopefully two or three. It will come back every year. Just don’t mistake it for a weed and rip it out mid-May (don’t ask us how we know!).

From New Leaf to Sweeter Life

Masquerading as kitchen chemists with a vendetta against cavities, we transform those unassuming dried leaves into a sprinkle of sweet-tooth satisfaction. Here’s our method:

• Harvesting – The best time to harvest stevia is before it flowers. How do we know it’s about to flower? We don’t. We guess. We wait until the plant looks suspiciously perky, then, early in the morning, we approach softly, speaking calmly, assuring it—like we do all our edibles—that it is about to become human. Then, we nonchalantly shear the stems to about 6 inches from the ground. We repeat this ritual two or three times a year. The plant thanks us by growing back even healthier.
• Dehydrating – We dry the leaves (either in a dehydrator or sometimes, if we’re feeling bohemian, we rubber band bunches together and hang them upside-down to dry in a dark, warm place. It only takes a few days for them to get nice and crisp).
  1. In our day-to-day conventional mode, the American Harvest Dehydrator is our secret weapon. It’s about the shape of a UFO and makes us feel like we’re preparing for a very niche apocalypse—one where the currency is leafy sweetened dust. And this is where the magic happens—and by magic, we mean plugging in a machine that sounds like a small jet engine and making our house smell deceptively like a Michelin Starred Restaurant. We unceremoniously strip the leaves from the stems and simply spread them on the trays. We try not to overpack them, unless we want what we call “leaf jerky,” which is exactly as terrible as it sounds.
  2. Once the dehydrator is loaded, we crank it to 95–105°F and walk away. This is important. DO NOT stand there staring at the vibrating machine like it’s going to whisper ancient secrets. It won’t.

• Powdering – Once dried, you can store the whole leaves in a cool dark place, in a glass jar—trust us, use glass. But if you’re feeling extra (which we often do), toss them into a grinder and buzz them into a fine green powder that looks like something you’d hide from TSA. We use a Ninja Spice Grider. But that’s all new and fancy. We used to just use our coffee grinder. But it made our grinder smell—and taste—like a Jolly Rancher’s great aunt (just use your imagination, people). Not a good taste when next grinding oregano.
  1. We sift the thoroughly ground powder through a sieve. This is not necessary, but it feels like we are making confectionary emerald stardust, and also, it is easier to use in dishes and drinks.
  2. Tip: Cover your face with a dust mask unless you want the joy of licking stevia off your lips all day. Seriously, even washing our face doesn’t seem to discourage that way-too-sweet powder from finding its way to our mouth—and if you have a beard, well, enjoy the dusty sweet ride.

Final Tip:

Store your powdered stevia in a labeled jar. We cannot emphasize this enough. Labeled. You do not want to mistake this herb for parsley, matcha, or cilantro. No one wants guacamole that tastes like Splenda.

The result?

A potent, home-grown, plant-based sweetener with a hint of earthy flavor and an aftertaste that takes some getting used to. Powdered stevia won’t caramelize, it won’t feed your sourdough starter, and it will absolutely confuse your relatives if you put it on the Thanksgiving table labeled “sugar.” However, it’s perfect for teas, smoothies, and even baking (with some very creative recipe tweaks). A little goes a long way—seriously, this stuff is potent. It’s like nature’s prank sugar.

The Takeaway?

While we’ll always dream of one day walking through our own date palm grove, we’ve come to appreciate the joy of growing what we can. Stevia may not have the caramel chewy indulgence of a Medjool date, but it’s a satisfying, homegrown way to add sweetness to our lives.

And in the end, that’s what sustainably-elegant living is all about—working with what we’ve got, and finding joy in the process. And, we are oddly proud of it. Not in the way we imagine we’d feel if we could harvest baskets of dates, but proud in the modest, slightly bitter way we felt after assembling our new garden trailer and only stripping two of the screws.

So no, we can’t grow dates. We can only sprinkle stevia on our culinary creations while wistfully wishing it tasted a bit more like a melt-in-your-mouth Sukkari date. But its sweet, it doesn’t need a palm tree or a decade to grow, and best of all, we get to enjoy the sustainably sweet life without spiking our blood sugar levels or losing our teeth.