Prescott, AZ - We all adore sweets, pastries, ice cream, candy, chocolate, and soft drinks. They tantalize our taste buds and dance in our mouths like bits of heaven.  But too much sugar can lead to health issues including heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and obesity. With consumers becoming increasingly more health conscious, it's no surprise that sugar substitutes are in demand more than ever before. One of the most popular options are stevia sweeteners, natural zero-calorie sweeteners that can be used in baked goods, frozen desserts, confections and beverages. But the question is, when added to food and drinks, do stevia sweeteners actually taste like sugar? Many people have observed that stevia sweeteners have bitter and licorice-like off tastes as well as a lingering sweet aftertaste, all perceptions that consumers find so unpleasant that they refuse to swap stevia sweeteners for sugar. Bottom line, most of us are not willing to compromise taste. And so, is there any solution in sight to our struggles with sugar?Grant E. DuBois, Chief Scientific Officer at Almendra, a highly reputable company that develops, manufactures and markets a range of stevia sweetener products including Steviose 100, the highest purity rebaudioside A in commercial production at 99.9%, as well as Steviarome taste modulators. Now, Almendra is announcing a breakthrough invention, the System G Taste Modulators, mixtures of magnesium, potassium, and calcium minerals that when added to stevia sweeteners, or any noncaloric sweeteners, gives them that pleasant taste of sugar we are all craving. AND the minerals in System G Taste Modulators are nutritionally important and underconsumed in the diets of most western consumers.Celebrating ten years in business since inception, Almendra's mission and objectives are on sugar reduction and taste modulator solutions for the global food and beverage industry. Headquartered in Singapore, Almendra manufactures in Thailand with specialist sales and support teams in the Americas, Europe and Asia. The purpose and mission of the organization is not only about professional achievements but also about integrity and an unequivocal desire to enhance and improve the overall health of all people.Dr. DuBois explains, the sweetness of stevia sweeteners derives from a multitude of steviol glycoside compounds approaching 60 in number present in the leaves of a plant known as stevia rebaudiana (Bertoni) which is indigenous to Paraguay and a part of Brazil. In earlier times, stevioside was the major steviol glycoside in this plant and pure stevioside is almost as bitter as it is sweet. Today, cultivars of this plant have been developed in which rebaudioside A is the major steviol glycoside and rebaudioside A, when pure, has negligible off taste. Rebaudioside D and rebaudioside M are steviol glycosides present at low levels in stevia leaf extracts but have been commercialized by bioconversion from rebaudioside A or by fermentation from glucose.Dr. DuBois' career is a testament to perseverance and vision marked by a series of successful innovations. His work is backed by decades of research, ingenuity, and his desire to reduce the detrimental role of sugar that slowly wreaks havoc on our minds and bodies. Given his potential, he has been determined to bring us on a path to long-term health and wellness.Concurrent with serving as Chief Scientific Officer at Almendra beginning in 2012, in 2013-2014, Dr. DuBois served as VP Research at Sweet Defeat LLC, where work led to Sweet Defeat, a sweetness-blocking weight loss product. And in 1992-2011, he was Director of Ingredient & Product Sciences at The Coca-Cola Company, where work led to multiple innovations, including the first sugar-free frozen carbonated beverages, the first sweetener receptor positive allosteric modulators SucralGEM and SucroGEM,
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