Client vs. Beliefs

One of my managers recently asked me to make a dessert for someone who does not eat sugar. He is not diabetic, but had a close scare and has stopped eating sugar completely. He told me that he's more afraid that if he eats a little bit of something sweet, that he won't be able to stop and he will be right back where he was before. I understand wanting to prevent diabetes and other health issues. However, I do not agree with artificial sweeteners. They are all made of chemicals that I believe will eventually cause more health problems including cancer. I would rather eat the full fat, full sugar item and just not eat a lot of it. It's what the Europeans do and they have a much lower obesity rate than we do. It's all about eating less processed, all-natural foods. We have forgotten that food should be grown, not developed in a chemical lab. The only thing that should have zero calories is WATER!

I will step off my soap box now.

Anyways...the client for this order wants me to use the new Splenda for Baking. I told her I would do some research and get back to her. I thought it over and I just can't bring myself to actually purchase The splenda and sell a product to a client that I did not think was 100% me. It's like on Project Runway where the judges tell the loser that week they lost their design aesthetic in order to please the client. I refuse to let that happen to me.

In my research, I found that Stevia is now available in a large bag for cooking and baking use. For those that are not familiar with Stevia, it's a plant. It looks kinda like a mint plant, but if you taste the leaves, they are sweet like sugar. I am much more comfortable with the idea of using Stevia in place of the sugar. The manufactuer says it can be used cup-for-cup, but with further reading, I found people have reduced the amount of Stevia because it is much sweeter than regular sugar. This might take a couple of trials to make sure I have the right ratio of Stevia. But I guess I should first choose a recipe.