“Natural” Chocolate
This is their chocolate flavor using stevia as a natural sweetener.
In a word? No.
Actually I need more words: Hell No.
The first time I tried it, I had a scoop of the unsweetened chocolate, so I mixed that with 1 scoop of this stuff. The first thing I noticed? Different colors. The unsweet was a darker brown, this stevia-chocolate was rather light in color.
The taste?
“Oh Dear God No!”
It was horrid. The mix of that cardboard flavor of the unsweet and this… odd flavor from the stevia.
I tried the stevia-chocolate again in water (all stevia-chocolate this time), and then in some skimmed raw milk (which is about the same as a 2%). While it got a little more palatable each time I tried it, it still is… weird.
I don’t know how to describe it, you just have to try it. The sweet isn’t what I expected. We all know what sugar sweet is like. Honey sweet. And even HFCS sweet. Most sweets try to chase the sweet of sugar, especially artificial sweeteners. This stevia? the taste is nothing like a sugar sweet. It’s sweet, very sweet, wicked sweet… but it’s some sort of different sweet.
I did work to finish the pound that I purchased. It did get a little better, it wasn’t as ugly tasting to drink, but it still left this weird taste in my mouth, a weird aftertaste, and that never went away and never became pleasant to me. I gave it as fair a shot as I could give it.
I won’t totally write off stevia yet, because maybe it’s this particular batch or this particular mix. Maybe it’ll taste better in other products. But I will say I’m in no rush to try it again. If I go the rest of my life never having stevia again, I’m OK with that.
I know some people are all happy about stevia. I’ve spoken with a few people and they are crazy about the stuff. Well, they can have it. 🙂
Stuff From Hsoi 
I’ve found the same effect from Stevia, there’s almost a lingering bitterness from what I’ve noticed. I’ve even read of the stevia “bite” elsewhere, so it’s a common feeling.
BTW – found your blog after it was brought up during Saturday morning’s basic pistol 2 class, really enjoying reading it!
Thank you for the kind words. 🙂
It’s good to know I’m not the only one and that this is common to stevia. I was trying to figure it may just be this batch or “just me” and be willing to try stevia again in another context. But it sounds like that’s not the case. Like I said… if I make it through life without ever trying stevia again, I’ll live. 🙂
Hey John!
Stevia has a bitter almost licorice-like flavor due to the way it’s processed. From what I read (and about fitness and nutrition it’s a lot!) folks are looking at ways to reduce/eliminate the bitterness. Stay tuned.
Do you ever do unsweetened almond milk with protein? Way better than milk and clean.
Wendler is amazing huh? We are on Wendler with back squats now..love seeing tangible progress weekly! Keep up the good work.
I don’t mind licorice, but the bitterness is hard to deal with. Just too strange. If they do improve it, fine. But in the meantime, a couple teaspoons of sugar is superior in flavor and doesn’t add many more calories.
Don’t use almond milk. Just water. Or if I want “milk” I’ll drink raw milk. But I’m probably going off milk almost entirely once I start on the fat-loss part of things.
I do like Wendler’s program. It works quite well and no question there’s progress… I think that’s what really helps is the feedback of progress. Motivation.
Good plan, milk is mostly sugar anyway which will not help with fat loss! Enjoy your blog!