On 3/30/2017 at 7:29 PM, Paul Fink said:
Thanks, I meant this http://www.nielsenmassey.com/culinary/products-madagascar-bourbon-pure-vanilla-powder.php
No Sugar
Ingredients: Maltodextrin (a modified corn starch), Vanilla extracts.
They do an extract, probably using alcohol.
Then the Maltodextrin and a spray technology is used to make a powder.
Maltodextrin is technically sugar. It just isn't sweet. But it breaks down in your body to glucose so quickly that it has roughly the same glycemic index as glucose.
Maltodextrins are sometimes used as bulking agents, because they have a neutral flavor and aren't hygroscopic. More interestingly, some forms of them are used to solidify fats. If you've ever wondered how they got vegetable oil into powdered cake mix, the answer is tapioca maltodextrin. A version marketed for this purpose is called N-Zorbit.
It's possible that the maltodextrin just acts as a bulking agent in the vanilla powder; it's also possible that the extract itself was oil-based, and the maltodextrin was used to solidify it.
