i'm not a big fan of stevia in tea, that's one place where i'll use the sugar alcohols by themselves. i don't drink much tea though, usually just herbal teas that don't need any sweetening.

yep, all of the above. plus it can cause bloating. some people have digestive problems with it. i think the dr axe article that you linked to in your first post went into that a bit?

my husband likes to add sugar to spicey foods too, he says it tempers the spiciness? and improves the flavour. i dunno, he makes his own sauces on the side now and adds them on his own plate so that i don't have to worry about the spiciness or the sugar. i've used a bit of baking soda to tone down tomato dishes that usually use a little sugar to do the same job, i don't know what that would do to spicey dishes?

my family uses tapioca starch as a thickening agent sometimes. i usually avoid it but as you say, a little bit spread out over many servings doesn't give much of a carb count anyways.

re honey--we keep our own bees, but i stay away from honey. it's a major trigger food for me. i don't know how many times, hubby has come in with a frame of honey saying, you've got to try this honey, the bees are on a really amazing varietal. and before i know it i'm on a full-on carb binge. now even when we're extracting honey i won't even have a single taste of any of it. in my experience, i have to really watch any of the sugars whether or not they're 'natural'. i have lots of health problems that are caused by carbs and it's just not something that i can handle.

there are recipe books out there that don't use any sweeteners, artificial or otherwise. one that i would recommend looking thru would be the new wahls cookbook. she uses certain combinations of spices to give the sweet/sour taste. it might be worth browsing thru for inspiration anyways. there's a look inside on amazon https://www.amazon.com/Wahls-Protoc...y/dp/1635616026

good luck!