One of the most basic and most common molecules in nature is glucose, a sugar. Imagine glucose being a bead, like those beads you can put together with a string. Plants can take glucose molecules and link them together in different ways. One possible product is called cellulose, which is what gives structure to plants. Or it can join the glucoses in a different way to make a different type of string called starches, which plants use for energy storage. So in plants you can find glucose by itself, or in a string of two (called maltose), or in a string of 3 to 20 (more or less) glucoses, which is called a maltodextrin, or in strings longer than 20 glucoses, which is called a starch. So in a nutshell, maltodextrin is nothing more than a short starch. It gets digested exactly as any other starch, unless it is a “resistant” maltodextrin, in which case it is resistant to digestion, so it becomes part of the fiber component of the food.
Carlos F. Madero, Ph.D. Director, Technical Support
The Juice Plus Company