sleight of hand by the FDA

Thanks to Ben for pointing out that I didn't list foods that contain maltodextrin in my original post. While I alluded to vague categories of both sugar-free and energy-boosting foods, I didn't mention concrete examples.

This is partly because I didn't find any lists of this sort online--another missing piece of the maltodextrin puzzle on the World Wide Web.

But from my research I can give you some examples that I found or know from my own brain (my OWN, not Google's; imagine):

Pretty much, anything from a box. Or can. Processed foods. It can be in cereals, chips, fruit snacks, powdered drinks, granola bars. It's a filler and an additive, so it's in snacks, especially ones that are considered lower-calorie or sugar-free. If I listed every food, my eyes would cross.

Following that sugar-free thing, maltodextrin is also the main ingredient in Splenda. So, this little sneaky sugar-free sweetener is not, in fact, devoid of calories, because, as I mentioned previously, maltodextrin has 4 calories per gram. And one packet of Splenda is one gram, so they have around 3 or 4 calories each. From their website:

[T]he bulking agents provide so few calories per serving that the FDA allows the SPLENDA® No Calorie Sweetener Products to be called no-calorie sweeteners, because they provide less than five calories per serving.

No wonder all these "diet" drinks haven't made a dent in the obesity epidemic. In fact, I know we've all heard that they actually make you fat--a statement that has been backed up by research--but do we listen? I don't keep soda in my apartment or drink it that often, but I know that at my sister's house I find myself reaching for diet over regular. Are we now so conditioned to associate "diet" with "healthier" even when we know that's not the case? Who's to blame for this?

Well, if you noticed the subtle acronym in the quote from Splenda, it's the Food and Drug Administraion that allows them to claim that they are calorie-free.

So maybe those girls who tried to sue McDonald's for making them fat a few years ago were aiming at the wrong target.