Maltodextrin: What Is It Doing in Your Food?

Maltodextrin is made by partially breaking down starch into shorter carbohydrate chains.

The US regulatory definition describes maltodextrin as a nutritive saccharide polymer made primarily of glucose units and produced by partial hydrolysis of starch.

In simple terms:

starch → partially broken down → shorter glucose chains → maltodextrin

It is usually sold as a white powder and has relatively little sweetness compared with table sugar.

Depending on the manufacturer, the original starch can come from sources including:

• maize
• potato
• rice
• wheat

The finished ingredient behaves differently from the intact starch it started as.

Because it is technically useful.

Maltodextrin can perform several jobs without adding the same intense sweetness you would get from ordinary sugar.

Food technology literature describes uses including:

• bulking
• carrying other ingredients
• stabilising formulations
• controlling moisture
• helping with texture
• helping powdered ingredients disperse
• encapsulating flavours or other compounds

That makes it useful across very different foods.

You may encounter it in products such as:

• seasoning mixes
• powdered drinks
• sports nutrition
• protein products
• snack foods
• sauces
• soups
• desserts
• flavour preparations

Its presence does not necessarily mean it is there to make the food sweeter.

This depends on what you mean by “sugar”.

Chemically, maltodextrin is built from glucose units.

But on an EU nutrition label, “sugars” has a specific legal definition.

EU food-information law defines sugars as the monosaccharides and disaccharides present in food. Carbohydrate is the broader category.

Maltodextrin contains longer chains of glucose units.

So it can contribute carbohydrate without all of that carbohydrate appearing under:

of which sugars

on the nutrition table.

This is why saying:

“The product only has 2g sugar, so there can't be much rapidly digestible carbohydrate in it.”

can be misleading.

Look at total carbohydrate as well.

This is where online discussions often become exaggerated.

Digestible maltodextrin is generally broken down quickly into glucose.

A scientific review of digestible maltodextrins notes that glucose released from them is rapidly absorbed in the small intestine and that replacing less processed starch with maltodextrin can increase post-meal glycaemia.

Controlled studies also commonly use maltodextrin as a rapidly digested carbohydrate comparator when testing slower-digesting carbohydrates.

So the useful conclusion is:

Digestible maltodextrin can raise blood glucose quickly.

Not:

Any food containing maltodextrin will automatically cause a dangerous blood-sugar spike.

The response depends on:

• how much maltodextrin is present
• the portion eaten
• what else is in the food
• the individual's glucose response
• the rest of the meal

You will often see very precise maltodextrin glycaemic-index numbers online.

Be careful with them.

Maltodextrin is not one single molecular product sold in exactly the same form everywhere.

Different maltodextrins can differ in their chain structure and degree of hydrolysis.

Food context also matters.

It is safer and more useful to say that digestible maltodextrins are typically rapidly digested carbohydrates rather than pretending one internet GI number describes every product.

One reason is that powders contain more than protein.

A manufacturer may need:

• flavour carriers
• bulking material
• texture
• improved mixing
• a carrier for small quantities of other ingredients

Maltodextrin can help with some of those functions.

In some sports-carbohydrate products, the carbohydrate itself may also be intentionally included as an energy source.

Maltodextrin is also deliberately used in sports nutrition as a fast-digesting carbohydrate source during longer or high-volume training sessions.

That means seeing maltodextrin in a protein or supplement product does not tell you its purpose automatically.

Look at:

• where it appears in the ingredients
• total carbohydrate
• serving size
• the type of product

What Does High Protein Mean?.

It gives you some information.

Under EU food-labelling rules, ingredients are generally listed in descending order of weight as used during manufacture.

So if maltodextrin is second on an ingredients list, it was generally used in a greater amount by weight than ingredients appearing much further down.

But the list does not normally tell you the exact percentage of maltodextrin unless specific quantitative declaration rules apply.

So:

high on the list = potentially significant ingredient

does not equal:

we know the exact grams.

This is another area where internet claims run ahead of simple answers.

A 2022 systematic review looked at human clinical trials in which maltodextrin had been used as a placebo or control and reported that physiological or microbiome changes were observed in a substantial proportion of the included studies.

However, the direction of those effects varied considerably between studies, as did:

• dose
• duration
• participant population
• product form
• outcomes measured

That is not strong justification for telling every consumer:

Maltodextrin destroys your gut bacteria.

The evidence is more complicated.

It does mean maltodextrin should not always be assumed to be biologically inert simply because researchers have sometimes used it as a placebo.

Resistant maltodextrin again needs to be kept separate because it can have quite different effects on gut fermentation.

Maltodextrin is an industrially produced starch-derived ingredient.

That fact alone should not be turned into:

Any product containing maltodextrin is automatically unhealthy.

NOVA classification looks at the formulation and processing of the food as a whole.

Maltodextrin may be one marker of a highly formulated food, particularly alongside multiple flavourings, colours, sweeteners or other functional ingredients.

But one word in the ingredients list should not replace assessment of the complete product.

Ultra-Processed Foods: What the Evidence Shows.

The comparison is useful, but they are not the same substance.

Do not turn this into:

Maltodextrin is worse than sugar

or:

Maltodextrin is better than sugar.

They have different structures and uses.

The line itself is not misleading.

The mistake is assuming it means:

all carbohydrate that eventually becomes glucose.

It does not.

EU law defines:

carbohydrate

more broadly than:

sugars.

So a product can legitimately show:

low sugars

while still containing a meaningful amount of rapidly digestible starch-derived carbohydrate.

That is why food labels work best when read together.

Maltodextrin is exactly the kind of ingredient that shows why a food scanner needs to do more than count sugar.

A product might say:

2g sugars

while the ingredients still contain maltodextrin.

Those statements are not necessarily contradictory.

Sláinte can help bring together:

• total carbohydrate
• sugars
• ingredients
• fibre
• processing context
• the rest of the product

So you can understand what the label is actually saying rather than judging one unfamiliar word.

How to Read an Ingredients List.

Food Labels Explained.