Hello everyone, Hello Julian,
I am the community manager of Feed.
We do not wish to be controversial. We respect the work of all other European foodtech.
Concerning the doubtful argument of sugar :
As you know, generally the labelling of sugars is fairly good, as most sugars are high GI (which is what you want to avoid) as a general rule. GI, or glycemic index, is the rate at which something is able to raise your blood sugar, so generally you should avoid high GI foods to avoid blood sugar (and energy) spikes and crashes. Pure glucose has a value of 100, and everything is relative to that.
The ‘sugar’ definition breaks down when it comes specifically to maltodextrin and isomaltulose.
Sugars are either monosaccharides or disaccharides. A saccharide is simply a carbohydrate component that is common to all carbs. Consider saccharides ‘sugar units’ for simplicity.
Monosaccharides contain one sugar unit, and disaccharides contain two. These are both generally classes as sugars, because they are simple, and sugars are simply defined as simple carbs for the purposes of labelling. The problem is this makes no reference to GI.
Isomaltulose is a simple carb - as it is a disaccharide carbohydrate composed of glucose and fructose linked by an alpha-1,6-glycosidic bond - and hence is labelled as a sugar, despite the body taking far longer to break it down (due to it having a GI of ~32).
Maltodextrin, on the other hand, is a complex carb - it is a polysaccharide, composed of multiple glucose units connected in chains of various length. As it is complex, it does not have to be labelled as a sugar. However, due to the ease with which the body can break it down into the individual glucose units, it has a GI of ~85-105, and sometimes higher.
As such, when you see a low sugar content in meal replacement products, look for maltodextrin, as it may well be the reason the sugar is so low (maltodextrin is a very cheap carb to use).
Isomaltulose, on the other hand, could be a contributing factor to a high sugar content on a nutritional label. However, in this case, it is important to remember what the definition of a sugar is on these labels, because isomaltulose is not like a typical sugar (whilst maltodextrin is) so it won’t come with the negative effects of one.
Despite that, due to the common perception around sugars, a lot of companies use maltodextrin instead of isomaltulose to avoid putting customers off by the high sugar content. The law surrounding sugar labelling needs to change in order to fix this.
While it would have been easier and cheaper for Feed. to use maltodextrin, we favored isomaltulose, to offer you superior nutritional quality !
At your disposal for any request,
Good continuation to Huel.
Good evening to all