Hi and Welcome to the first installment in the “What The Hell is ____” Series

I decided to produce this series to start informing people what all those long names are on their food ingredients list. If you have ever seen maltodextrin, sodium nitrate or red dye #5 on your label then its time to read on.

Today we start with a classic and one that I found in a favorite food of mine the other day, maltodextrin. So what is it?

Well, for you chemistry majors out there, maltodextrin is short chained starch sugar with a gelatin hybrid base. So its a sweet polysaccharide and of course a variation of dextrin. Dextrins being a group of low-molecular-weight carbohydrates produced by the hydrolysis of starch. Maltodextrin is typically derived from either corn(no surprise here), rice or potatoes.

For everyone else, for all intensive purposes, its SUGAR.