| The
Ka'a He'ê, Stevia rebaudiana (Bertoni) Bertoni, is
a native plant that grows in the northern areas of the Oriental
Region of Paraguay.
It
has been known, from times immemorial, that the leaves of
Ka'a He'ê were used as a medicinal plant as well as
a sweetener by the Guarani Indians, the native people indigenous
to Paraguay.
The
technology related to the growing of the species has developed
considerably since the days in which the learned Swiss botanist
Moisés S. Bertoni discovered and identified it taxonomically.
Especially after the agronomist Juan B. Aranda Giménez
and his wife Vera Bertoni established the methods for not
only multiplying but also "domesticating" the
means of production
Ever since Doctor Ovidio Rebaudi undertook the first studies
on the nature and industrial application of the sweetener
extracted from this plant numerous foreign scientists continue
investigating its properties. Thus, as a result of laboratory
tests undertaken, it is known today that the extract contains
steviósido, rebaudiósido A, and at least six
other sweetener components.
Through
the diffusion of information regarding the nature and present
day use, besides the potentials of the plant's sweetener
principles, its commercial growing has acquired a somewhat
variable importance in Brazil, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, USA
(California) and, logically in Paraguay. A strong impulse
in the production of this species is being made in the first
four countries mentioned through the extraction, distilling
and crystallisation of its main chemical components which
are already being utilised in a vast gamma of products destined
for human consumption. |
