What Is Maltitol? The Sweetener in No Added Sugar Chocolate

You will find it on the label of every bar in our No Added Sugar range, by name or as E965.

What is maltitol made from?

Maltitol starts as starch, usually from maize or wheat. The starch is broken down into maltose, the malt sugar that gives it its name. Adding hydrogen then turns that maltose into maltitol. The result looks and pours like caster sugar.

Technically it belongs to a family called polyols, sometimes written as sugar alcohols, though there is no alcohol in the drinking sense anywhere near it. Erythritol, xylitol and sorbitol are cousins from the same family, all covered in our guide to sugar alcohols. On the nutrition table polyols get their own line under carbohydrates.

Why do chocolate makers use maltitol?

Sugar does three jobs in a chocolate bar: it sweetens, it provides bulk so the bar has body and it sets the texture behind a clean snap and a slow melt. Take sugar out and most sweeteners fail at the second and third jobs. Stevia, for example, is hundreds of times sweeter than sugar, so the sweetening for a whole bar would barely cover a teaspoon tip and something else must fill the space.

The International Food Information Council puts maltitol at about 90 percent as sweet as sugar, so it swaps in almost gram for gram. The bar keeps its body and its snap, with no aftertaste to mask. Our 85 g No Added Sugar milk and dark bars are both built this way:

Does maltitol raise blood sugar?

Maltitol is absorbed slowly and only partly, which changes how the body handles it compared with sugar. UK law authorises exactly one form of words for sweeteners like it, from the Great Britain nutrition and health claims register:

In the small intestine maltitol breaks down gradually into glucose and sorbitol, of which only part is absorbed. The rest travels on and is fermented by gut microbes, the same way fibre is. Slow, partial absorption is why the glucose rise is lower than with sugar. A first encounter with a lot of polyols is something to ease into for the same reason, exactly as you would with a high fibre food. Your gut adjusts.

How many calories does maltitol have?

UK food law assigns polyols 2.4 kilocalories per gram, against 4 for sugar. Chocolate remains chocolate: cocoa butter and milk bring their own energy, so a maltitol bar is not a diet food and we will never pretend otherwise. The NHS advises adults to keep free sugars under 30 g a day. A bar that swaps its sugar for maltitol stops drawing on that budget. Regular milk chocolate is typically more than half sugar by weight. Our No Added Sugar milk bar lists 6.7 g of sugars per 100 g, all naturally occurring.

Is maltitol safe to eat?

Yes, maltitol is an authorised sweetener in UK food. Any food with more than 10 percent added polyols, maltitol included, must carry the words excessive consumption may produce laxative effects, under Annex III of Regulation 1169/2011 as it applies in Great Britain. Our No Added Sugar dark chocolate prints that line, since polyols make up 42 g of every 100 g. It contains naturally occurring sugars, 0.5 g per 100 g.

The part of maltitol the small intestine does not absorb draws water into the bowel and is fermented further down by gut bacteria. The same slow digestion is why the glucose rise is lower than with sugar. In very large daily amounts it can also loosen the bowel.

In a 2003 trial in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 12 healthy adults took rising doses of maltitol through the day until diarrhoea or a severe digestive symptom appeared. The average threshold was 92 g of maltitol a day, against 106 g for sugar taken the same way. The authors judged those doses much greater than foods normally supply. A larger University of Reading study gave 40 adults chocolate sweetened with maltitol or maltitol blends for six weeks, doubling the dose every fortnight. Bowel habit showed no significant change even at 45.6 g of sweetener a day.

Slow digestion is also the basis of the authorised GB health claim on blood glucose for maltitol: “Consumption of foods/drinks containing maltitol instead of sugar induces a lower blood glucose rise after their consumption compared to sugar-containing foods/drinks”.

Which Diablo products are sweetened with maltitol?

Maltitol sweetens most of what we make: the No Added Sugar chocolate bars, the Hazelnut Chocolate Spread with its 8.6 g of naturally occurring sugars per 100 g, the wafers, the cakes, the dessert sauces and most of the Sugar Free range too. In the muffins and most of the cakes, maltitol shares the work with a trace of acesulfame K, an intense sweetener that tops up the sweetness. A few recipes go their own way. Our boiled sweets lean on isomalt, a polyol cousin. The gummies pair steviol glycosides, the sweet compounds from the stevia leaf, with polyols. And the peanut butters need no sweetener at all, because the ingredient list is 100% Peanuts and nothing else.

Neither range name on our packs refers to the sweetener. A Sugar Free product holds 0.5 g of sugars or less in every 100 g. No Added Sugar means we added none. Any sugars on the nutrition table occur naturally in ingredients like milk, cocoa and fruit.

Taste what maltitol can do

Frequently asked questions

Is maltitol bad for you?

No. Maltitol is a permitted sweetener and one of the polyols with an authorised GB claim for a lower blood glucose rise when it replaces sugar. Foods with more than 10 percent added polyols carry a labelling line about laxative effects, and in a 2003 trial diarrhoea or severe symptoms set in at an average of 92 g of maltitol a day.

Why does maltitol chocolate say it may have laxative effects?

UK labelling law asks for that sentence wherever added polyols exceed 10 percent of the food, whichever polyol it is. Part of the maltitol reaches the large intestine unabsorbed, where it holds water and is fermented. In the 2003 trial the average threshold was 92 g in a day.

Is maltitol bad for gut bacteria?

No. In a 2010 University of Reading trial, 40 adults ate chocolate sweetened with maltitol or maltitol blends daily for six weeks, and the bifidobacteria counted in their stool samples went up. A 2019 review in Advances in Nutrition lists maltitol among the polyols that reach the large bowel and increase bifidobacteria numbers in humans.

Is maltitol a sugar?

No. Maltitol is a polyol, a separate category of carbohydrate. On a UK nutrition table it appears under carbohydrates on its own polyols line, not on the sugars line. That is why a bar sweetened with maltitol can carry so little sugar.

Is maltitol vegan?

Maltitol itself is, since it is made from plant starch. Whether a finished product is vegan depends on the rest of the recipe: milk chocolate is not, while several maltitol sweetened products are. Check the label on each product.

What is the difference between maltitol and stevia?

Maltitol is a bulk sweetener made from starch that replaces sugar almost gram for gram, which suits chocolate. Stevia comes from the leaves of the stevia plant and is hundreds of times sweeter than sugar, so it is used in tiny amounts. Both appear across the Diablo range and each product page lists its sweetener. We weigh the two up in stevia vs maltitol.