Food ingredients from Stevia rebaudiana

A process for producing a stevia food ingredient, comprising the steps of:

• (a) providing a stevia biomass;
• (b) soaking the stevia biomass in water to remove water soluble components and then separating them into water-insoluble stevia biomass and first water-based filtrate;
• (c) incubating the water-insoluble stevia biomass from step (b) in an alkaline solution to produce a pulp;
• (d) washing the pulp from step (c) with water and then separating them into water-insoluble washed pulp and second water-based filtrate;
• (e) bleaching the washed pulp from step (d) with a chlorine-free bleaching agent to produce a bleached pulp;
• and separating the bleached pulp from the bleaching agent;
• (f) washing the bleached pulp from step (e) with water and then separating them into water-insoluble bleached pulp containing cellulose and third water-based filtrate;
• (g) depolymerizing the cellulose of the bleached pulp from step (f) to obtain a depolymerized pulp;
• (h) washing the depolymerized pulp from step (g) to yield cellulose crystals;
• and
• (i) suspending the cellulose crystals from step (h) in water and spray-drying to yield the stevia food ingredient;
• so that the stevia food ingredient comprises microcrystalline cellulose.