stevia. Organic stevia.

Stevia comes from a stevia plant’s leaves. Like any plant, stevia farmers want to produce as much stevia on their land as possible and not give any up to insects or to diminish the size of their plant’s leaves due to weed competition.

I have no idea how much pesticide and herbicide they use on nonorganic stevia farms; I certainly don’t want to eat those chemicals, even a little. That’s why I use organic stevia.

One more sugar-saving change: stevia-sweetened chocolate baking chips for regular chocolate chips. I use Lily’s brand Dark Chocolate Premium Baking Chips. Lily’s chips deliver 40 fewer calories per ounce and zero sugars. Lily’s also contains about 1 fat gram more than standard chocolate chips. Good deal.

After mixing up and baking my new, butter-free, low-sugar chocolate banana bread, I let it cool and then took it to a dinner party where everybody contributed parts of the meal. I asked everyone to guess the secret ingredient; no one could. When I revealed that the shortening wasn’t butter, but avocado, everyone was amazed. No one guessed that it had less than half the sugars as the original, either.

Got some overripe bananas? Make my banana bread and see if any of your family or friends can guess the secret ingredient.

• Don Mauer welcomes questions, comments and recipe makeover requests. Write to him at don@ theleanwizard.com.