Simple Test to Detect MALTODEXTRIN in Your Supplements

Dr. Berg’s Healthy Keto and Intermittent Fasting Podcast

Dr. Eric Berg

Health & Fitness

4.7 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 13 September 2023

⏱️ 8 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Did you know some health supplements contain hidden sugar, like maltodextrin? Today, I will share a simple test to find hidden sugar in your food and health supplements.

Iodine mixed with water is a golden color. If you combine iodine with starch, it turns blue. When you add iodine to bread, for example, it turns blue. Or, if you put maltodextrin in water and add a few drops of iodine, the water will turn blue.

My brand of electrolyte powder doesn’t have any sugar or maltodextrin in it. However, when we look at a competitor’s electrolyte powder that also claims it doesn’t have sugar or maltodextrin, it turns blue when iodine is added.

Maltodextrin behaves like sugar, spiking insulin, but can be classified on a label as a carb and not a sugar. On the glycemic index, table sugar is at 65, and glucose is at 100—maltodextrin is between 105 and 185.

Maltodextrin is the most common starch added to supplements and other products. If there is less than one gram of maltodextrin in a product per serving size, the company doesn’t even have to state it.

Maltodextrin can also be found in flavorings, energy gels, sports powders, and even baby formulas. It’s important to be aware that some so-called keto-friendly products can also contain maltodextrin.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Now, I have a question. Would you buy this product if I added multiple dextrin to it?
0:06.9	Chances are you probably wouldn't, okay? I'm going to teach you a scientific, simple,
0:12.4	quick test that you can apply to any food or supplement to determine if there is hidden
0:20.7	starches, okay, like multiple dextrin, by simply adding a little iodine. Check this out.
0:27.8	All right, I'm going to show you an experiment. This test is to determine if there are
0:32.5	carbohydrates in your supplements or even your food, okay? And primarily, I'm going to focus
0:38.8	on multiple dextrin because that's a hidden carb, which is really a sugar, in a lot of supplements,
0:46.2	especially in flavors. Now, the works like this, all you need is some iodine, okay? If you combine
0:53.5	iodine with a starch, it turns the color blue. Now, if we take just normal water, okay, I'm just
1:00.0	going to take water. We just take a drop or two of iodine in just regular water, tap water.
1:12.4	You can see it doesn't turn blue. It stays kind of golden yellow, okay? But if we take
1:20.1	some iodine on some wonderful bread, you can see it will turn blue, okay? That's the chemical
1:28.0	reaction. That occurs, which I'm not going to get into why, but it just does that. Now, if we take
1:33.3	pure multidextrin, for example, and put it in some water right here, okay, mix it up,
1:41.2	put a couple drops of iodine in it. You can see the color blue or purple, okay? That's pure
1:56.8	multidextrin. Now, let's take this other electrolyte powder, which is a competitor's brand,
2:04.0	which has a very similar formula to mine, like a copycat formula. They state that this is without
2:12.8	sugar or multidextrin. Okay, cool. Okay, so let's add a scoop of that and a couple drops of
2:22.1	iodine. Let's see if it has multidextrin in there.
2:31.4	Woo! Turns purple blue. Apparently it does. All right, now let's take my electrolyte powder. Let's
2:41.3	see if it has any multidextrin in there or carbs, starches, I mean. Okay, mix it here. Let's put
2:50.6	a couple drops of iodine in there. No purple, no multidextrin. In fact, let's put some even more
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Dr. Eric Berg, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Dr. Eric Berg and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.