What is Sava?
We believe that what you eat regularly matters more than what you eat one day. That's why we make foods designed to stay in your pantry, in your habits, in your life.
Short labels, with ingredients from nature. Everything else, out: no E-additives, nothing ultra-processed.
And a conviction that runs through everything we do: sweetness shouldn't depend on sugar. We make Sava for those who check the label before putting an item in their cart. We start with sweetness, with Sava Ritual: monk fruit in drops and powder. And this is just the beginning.
Monk Fruit: The Immortals' Fruit
Legend has it that those who drank its tea lived for so many years that in those mountains they began to call it the fruit of the immortals.
Plant-based Sweetness
But seriously: the sweetness comes from the fruit itself, prepared the way it always has been — as a decoction. 100% plant-based.
The Secret: Mogrosides
Its sweetness does not come from its sugars, but from mogrosides: compounds unique to this fruit, much sweeter than sugar. That's why a few drops or a small dose are enough — in your coffee, infusions, yogurt or your usual recipes.
Not all sweetness is the same.
Here are the facts.
Compare us
SUGAR
What it is
Table sugar, from cane or beet.
How it is obtained
From refining the plant until only the sugar remains.
Sweetness
The reference. 4 kcal per gram, always.
Worth noting
The WHO recommends consuming half of what we currently do.¹ That is why the rest of this table exists.
POLYOLS
erythritol, xylitol, maltitol...
What it is
Sweetening additives. They do not exist in any plant: they are made in a factory.
How it is obtained
From transforming sugars with industrial processes.
Sweetness
Less than sugar — which is why “sugar-free” products are loaded with them.
Worth noting
Recent studies link erythritol and xylitol to a higher risk of heart attack and stroke.² And by law, their label must warn that they may have a laxative effect.³ Maltitol raises blood glucose less than sugar, but it does raise it: its glycaemic index is 35, versus 65 for sugar.⁴ At Sava, none.
MONK FRUIT
Ours
What it is
The decoction of a fruit. A food, not an additive.
How it is obtained
By cooking the fruit, as has always been done.
Sweetness
Intense and clean — a little goes a long way.
Worth noting
Its sweetness does not come from sugars, but from mogrosides: the sweet molecules found in this fruit. Sweet, without being sugar.
ARTIFICIAL
sucralose, aspartame…
What it is
Molecules that nature has never made. They only exist because someone invented them.
How it is obtained
From a chemical reactor, not a field.
Sweetness
Hundreds of times sweeter than sugar, with a metallic aftertaste.
Worth noting
The WHO’s cancer agency classified aspartame as “possibly carcinogenic”.⁵ If it doesn’t exist in nature, it doesn’t go into Sava.
STEVIA
the supermarket kind
What it is
A purified extract of the leaf — an additive — mixed with filler.
How it is obtained
There's not much leaf left: most of the package is usually filler, almost always erythritol.
Sweetness
Very intense, with the flavor that made it famous.
Worth noting
“With stevia” doesn’t mean stevia leaf. Turn the pack over: stevia is usually last on the list.
NATURAL SUGARS
dates, honey, agave, maple syrup
What it is
Sugar with better press.
How it is obtained
From concentrating the sugar from fruit or sap.
Sweetness
Same as sugar, with notes of its origin — dates taste like dates, honey like honey.
Worth noting
For the WHO, they count exactly the same as table sugar.¹ The origin label doesn't change the chemistry — or what it does in your body.
1 World Health Organization, Guideline: Sugars intake for adults and children (2015). 2 Witkowski et al., Nature Medicine (2023) and European Heart Journal (2024), Cleveland Clinic. Observational and mechanistic studies: show association, not demonstrated causality. 3 Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, Annex III: mandatory mention for foods with more than 10% added polyols. 4 Livesey, Nutrition Research Reviews (2003). Glycaemic index with glucose = 100. 5 International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), Monographs, vol. 134 (2023).
Discerning voices
“I’m not going to ask you to give up sweets. It’s about finding healthier options. Let me tell you what I do: years ago, I switched from sugar to monk fruit in my coffee and hot chocolate. What I was missing was a brand that did it really well — without erythritol, without additives — and that actually tasted good, not like a substitute. Now I’ve found it.”
“Monk fruit is, for me, the best alternative to sugar today. And this is the most carefully made product I’ve found: you read the label and nothing in it is unnecessary. Real sweetness, no fine print.”
Mariana Aróstegui
Author of Desincronizados: Resetea tu metabolismo y reconecta con tu “yo” ancestral
INGREDIENTS FROM NATURE
EVERYTHING ELSE, OUT
MODERN WELLBEING
Our story
In 2022, pregnant with twins, I was told at a consultation that I was on the verge of gestational diabetes. That's when everything changed.
I started reading, asking questions, listening to doctors and researchers. And I found something I didn't expect: metabolic health determines so much of how we live — and almost no one talks about it. No one teaches you about it, until one day it affects you.
Sugar is everywhere. In things that don't taste sweet. In things sold as healthy. And I got tired of that being the norm.
So I left my corporate career of over fifteen years and founded Sava. The name comes from “savia” — the sap, the essence of what is alive. We started with what I needed and what didn't exist: a way to sweeten that truly measured up, made with a fruit that Buddhist monks have been cultivating for almost a thousand years.
If we contribute to this being talked about more, it will have been worth it.
Thank you for reading this far.
We are building this for you.
Carolina Berrizbeitia
La Regla Sava
Etiqueta corta.
Ingredientes de la naturaleza.
Lo demás, fuera — sin aditivos E,
sin ultraprocesados.
Si lleva la S, cumple la regla.
