Ingredient
Maltitol
The member of this family that delivers least of what the category promises, and the label rarely says how much of it you are getting.
- E number
- E965
- Also on labels as
- E965, Maltitol syrup, Hydrogenated glucose syrup, Hydrogenated maltose, Maltit
- Found in
- food
Part of Blood sugar
Maltitol is the sugar alcohol used when a product needs to behave like sugar. It is nearly as sweet, it browns, and it has the bulk and mouthfeel that make sugar-free chocolate possible.
That closeness is the whole page. Maltitol resembles sugar in the ways manufacturers want and also in the way a reader watching blood glucose does not.
It is the least sugar-free of the sugar-free sweeteners
The family is sold on one promise: sweetness without the blood glucose response. Maltitol delivers the least of it.
Erythritol is largely absorbed and excreted unchanged and barely registers. Xylitol and Sorbitol sit in between. Maltitol is at the far end, raising glucose considerably more than the others, which matters because it is the one most likely to be doing the sweetening in a sugar-free chocolate bar.
So “sugar-free” on a product built on maltitol is a true statement about sucrose and a weaker one about what the product will do to you. The label will not usually help you weigh that, because US rules make the sugar alcohol declaration voluntary, which is set out on the page for reading labels when you are watching blood sugar.
The digestive part is not a rumour
Maltitol is the member of this family most associated with the laxative effect, and it arrives at ordinary portions rather than extreme ones. What is not absorbed draws water into the bowel and is fermented in the colon.
That is the mechanism behind the warning printed on sugar-free confectionery, and behind the reviews of sugar-free sweets that read like accident reports. It is dose-dependent and tolerance varies widely, so the honest advice is to find your own threshold with a small quantity rather than discover it with a whole bar.
What it is genuinely good at
Teeth, and this is a regulatory position rather than a marketing one.
Maltitol is on the FDA’s list of eligible noncariogenic carbohydrate sweeteners, alongside xylitol, sorbitol, erythritol and the rest. The regulation states that “noncariogenic carbohydrate sweeteners do not promote dental caries”, because they are “slowly metabolized by bacteria to form some acid” at a rate and amount “significantly less than that from sucrose and other fermentable carbohydrates”.
So a product sweetened with maltitol earns a health claim about teeth that a sugar-sweetened one cannot. That is real, and it is a different question from blood glucose.
Reading it on a label
Maltitol syrup and hydrogenated glucose syrup are the same material in liquid form, and they are what most sugar-free chocolate is actually built on.
In Europe it carries E965. Products containing more than ten percent added polyols must carry the warning that excessive consumption may produce laxative effects, which is one of the few places a European label states a consequence rather than a contents.
Sources
- 21 CFR 101.80: Health claims: dietary noncariogenic carbohydrate sweeteners and dental caries US Food and Drug Administration, via eCFR · ecfr.gov Names maltitol among the eligible noncariogenic carbohydrate sweeteners and states that they do not promote dental caries, producing significantly less acid than sucrose.
- 21 CFR 101.9: Nutrition labeling of food US Food and Drug Administration, via eCFR · ecfr.gov Makes the declaration of sugar alcohol content voluntary, so a product built on maltitol need not state how many grams it contains.