hey mommies, the Happy Baby people replied! here's the response..
Jacqueline,
This is Steven Mesia writing to you. I’m the Dir: QA for our company, and a 23 year food scientist in the industry. I get cc’d on all parents emails, and I’m best qualified to answer this question.
Our cereal(s) have some detectable sweetness not because of the glucose syrup solids (which are used to stabilize the DHA, and are in the cereal at about 0.00001% so..VERY little), but because we break down the initial starchy nature of the cereals with alpha amylase (the same enzyme found in your stomach). When we do this, the highly branches starches (which are just long chains of sugars…) break down into their component sugars, just as your or your child’s stomach would do, and thus, you can perceive the “sweetness” on your tongue. The same thing happens in your body, just in the stomach and gut.
Obviously, we pre-digest the cereal this way (most all baby cereal has this done to it) to increase it’s digestibility, as little ones don’t have the necessary enzyme load or capacity to digest raw cereal until they become accustomed to it in their diet.
I hope this has helped, but as always, feel free to reach me at this email, or my cell, below, anytime for follow up.
Best Regards,
Steven Mesia
HAPPYBABY | Dir: QA
139 Fulton St. Ste. 907
New York, NY 10038
O. 208-338-6534
C. 208.921.7278
F. 212. 602.0104