Maltitol – sugar reduction in practice

Sugar reduc­tion is excit­ing but com­plex work. In an arti­cle series, we will look at some ingre­di­ents that can be used to reduce sug­ar in foods. How can the ingre­di­ents be used and what should be con­sid­ered? These are ques­tions we should answer! In this arti­cle, we take a clos­er look at malti­tol.

What is maltitol?

Maltitol is a sug­ar alco­hol that can be extract­ed in var­i­ous ways. For the large-scale indus­try, the start­ing point is to use starch from wheat, pota­toes, corn, rice, cas­sa­va, or any oth­er crop that is rich in starch. If you want to know more about malti­tol and how it is extract­ed, you can read more about it in the arti­cle Maltitol - from seed to Eureba.

Sweet and tasty

Maltitol is a bulk sweet­en­er that is close to sug­ar when it comes to sweet­ness. More specif­i­cal­ly, malti­tol has 80–90 per cent of the sweet­ness of sug­ar. And on top of that, malti­tol offers a nice taste that is very sim­i­lar to sug­ar. Therefore, malti­tol is pop­u­lar as a sweetener.

Fairly low in calories

Maltitol has 2.4 kcal per gram. There is, how­ev­er, anoth­er sug­ar alco­hol that is bet­ter in this respect, name­ly ery­thri­tol which has 0 kcal per gram. But things must be put into con­text. Ordinary sug­ar is 4 kcal per gram.

The com­bi­na­tion of fine bulk prop­er­ties and rel­a­tive­ly high sweet­ness, while at the same time pro­vid­ing few­er calo­ries than sug­ar, explains why this sug­ar alco­hol is so pop­u­lar in sug­ar reduction.

Glycemic index

Let’s be frank – there are sug­ar alco­hols that per­form bet­ter, to put it mild­ly. The GI val­ue is per­haps the weak­est point of malti­tol. At least in rela­tion to oth­er sug­ar alco­hols. Compared to sug­ar, malti­tol has a GI val­ue of just over half the amount found in sug­ar. Whether malti­tol has a high or low GI sim­ply depends on what we com­pare it to.

No cooling effect

The endother­mic reac­tion that gives a cool­ing sen­sa­tion in the mouth is neg­li­gi­ble in malti­tol unlike oth­er sug­ar alco­hols (eg ery­thri­tol). In addi­tion, malti­tol is kind to the teeth and does not cause caries.

What can you use it for?

Maltitol has many great prop­er­ties that come well in hand when it comes to prod­uct devel­op­ment and sug­ar reduc­tion. It is par­tic­u­lar­ly suit­able for dairy prod­ucts where ice cream is a prime exam­ple. Other dis­tinc­tive foods where malti­tol comes into its own are choco­late, chew­ing gum and pastries.

Chocolate

There are many sug­ar alco­hols that can fit in choco­late. But most also have some lim­i­ta­tions. Many have only half the sug­ar sweetness.

An excep­tion is xyl­i­tol, which cer­tain­ly has a high sweet­ness but also a dis­tinc­tive cool­ing effect.

The remain­ing one is malti­tol. In addi­tion to offer­ing high sweet­ness, you also avoid the endother­mic reac­tion. Maltitol also has a high melt­ing point.

A high melt­ing point increas­es the chance for the choco­late to stay in a sta­ble state if it dis­solves. A low melt­ing point can result in grain­i­ness or lumps in the choco­late, which can lead to an unpleas­ant mouth­feel. With a high melt­ing point, you instead get a con­trolled tex­ture and melt­ing prop­er­ties that are sim­i­lar to sugar.

Ice cream

In ice cream, you can replace sug­ar with malti­tol. Maltitol mol­e­cules, in prin­ci­ple, weigh as much as sug­ar mol­e­cules. This means that sug­ar and malti­tol have the same freez­ing point depres­sion, which in turn gives ice cream made with malti­tol a sim­i­lar mouth­feel com­pared to con­ven­tion­al ice cream made with sugar.

Chewing gum

Maltitol also fits well in chew­ing gum. Especially con­sid­er­ing that malti­tol, just like oth­er sug­ar alco­hols, does not cause caries.

Another rea­son why malti­tol fits well in, for exam­ple, chew­ing gum is that it has a low hygro­scop­ic lev­el. Hygroscopy is a sub­stance’s abil­i­ty to absorb mois­ture. Maltitol does not begin to absorb mois­ture until the humid­i­ty is greater than 80 per cent.

But why is this a good trait then?

Well, it does affect the dura­bil­i­ty of a prod­uct – all the way from the fac­to­ry to the shelf in the gro­cery store. A chew­ing gum retains its tex­ture and glossy appear­ance for a long time. In addi­tion, you do not need to take into account a cer­tain type of stor­age and han­dling of the food in spe­cial­ly adapt­ed premises.

May upset your stomach

Just like with oth­er sug­ar alco­hols, you need to watch out for dos­ing. Otherwise, the stom­ach says away. If malti­tol con­sti­tutes 10% by weight or more of the food, there must be a small warn­ing text about the lax­a­tive effect.

Biscuits and cookies

Maltitol is applic­a­ble in cook­ies and pas­tries. It has a num­ber of prop­er­ties that are suit­able for these appli­ca­tions. Again, it is the com­bi­na­tion of good sweet­ness and bulk char­ac­ter­is­tics that is the suc­cess fac­tor in baked goods.

Maltitol also has good humec­tant prop­er­ties, which is impor­tant when it comes to pas­tries where you want to keep mois­ture con­tained and main­tain the right lev­el of juici­ness. Even in bis­cuits, malti­tol does­n’t make a fool of itself, offer­ing just the right crispy texture.

But some­thing malti­tol does not offer is the Maillard reac­tion. This means, among oth­er things, that you are miss­ing out on that nice brown shade that we appre­ci­ate in pastries.

The ques­tion is whether you can com­bine malti­tol with anoth­er ingre­di­ent to achiev­ing the Maillard reac­tion. One solu­tion could be to com­bine malti­tol with poly­dex­trose.

Legislation

It is pos­si­ble to com­bine sug­ar with malti­tol if malti­tol also stands for oth­er func­tions in the food in addi­tion to adding sweet­ness. The start­ing point for using malti­tol is that the calo­rie reduc­tion should be at least 30 per cent, regard­less of whether malti­tol is used alone or in com­bi­na­tion with oth­er sugars.

High sweet­ness is not all when it comes to sug­ar reduc­tion. But in cas­es where high sweet­ness is impor­tant, malti­tol may need the help of a high-inten­si­ty sweet­en­er to ensure high sweet­ness – but also to favour a decent calo­rie reduction.

What does Srdjan say?

We turn to Srdjan Solaja, food engi­neer and an expert in sug­ar reduction.

What is important to be aware of when considering maltitol?

– Whatever sug­ar alco­hol you choose, you will always need to take into account the dosage, the lax­a­tive effect, and take care of con­sumers’ ques­tions about why you use it and whether it is safe or not. When it comes to GI, it is impor­tant to note that almost all sug­ar alco­hols raise blood sug­ar to a cer­tain extent and should be con­sumed with cau­tion. Maltitol is cer­tain­ly no exception.

What is it like to work with maltitol?

– Maltitol is avail­able in liq­uid and crys­tal­lized form, mak­ing it a per­fect ingre­di­ent in a vari­ety of appli­ca­tions. In some cas­es, you may need to add a high-inten­si­ty sweet­en­er, but not always.

In crys­tal­lized form, malti­tol is very sim­i­lar to sug­ar. Therefore, you do not need to change process­es or obtain addi­tion­al equip­ment to work with it.

Srdjan’s three tips

• Remember to dose cor­rect­ly, as there are peo­ple with sen­si­tive stomachs
• Suitable for bak­ing as malti­tol – unlike many oth­er sweet­en­ers – pro­vides the right sta­bil­i­ty and is heat resistant
• Reminds a lot of sug­ar and can replace sug­ar com­plete­ly in some appli­ca­tions – but not always!

A helping hand

If you want help reduc­ing sug­ar in your prod­uct, we can help you. Do not hes­i­tate to con­tact us.