Splenda’s new stevia farm in central Florida is the first of its kind in the United States. Thousands of plants produce millions of leaves that are then turned into plant-based stevia sweetener products. But how do they get the sweet stuff out?
Science! Wait… come back! It’s not scary science, it’s actually fun. The process is much the same way sugar is produced from sugarcane — it’s mashed and boiled and the syrup becomes sugar or other products.
It is the same kind of thing with stevia, as Chip Carter demonstrates here in the Where the Food Comes From bonus scene.
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There are about 48 million cases of foodborne illnesses in the United States annually – that’s roughly one in six Americans.
Sometimes food safety can be less about what’s in or out of what you’re eating and more about what you’re used to eating, as Dr. Francisco Diez from the University of Georgia Food Safety Center explains.
You’ve probably heard that if you drop food it’s still clean and edible as long as you pick it up within 5 seconds. Sorry, not true!
“Where The Food Comes From” visits M&B Products, a milk bottling plant in Temple Terrace, FL (a suburb of Tampa) with its farm in Lecanto, operated by the McClellan family. Get ready for a lesson in everything from milk bottling, to dairy nutrition, and bovine reproduction!
Mary Days is a contributor and good friend of “Where the Food Comes From,” and enjoys joining us on shoots in Florida. This is her behind-the-scenes take on what a day looks like filming with the crew.
Would you believe it’s possible to have a dairy barn where all you smell is clean fresh country air? Leon McLellan of M&B Products in Temple Terrace, FL shows us how!
