Carrageenan is one of the food additives mentioned on the packaging of many foods. Moreover, the range of its use is very wide: from sausage to curd mass.
Carrageenan is a dietary supplement that can be found in a wide variety of foods today. At the same time, it can appear in the composition of ingredients under different names: carrageenan itself, one of the carrageenan salts, for example, potassium, sodium or ammonium, or simply a food supplement E407. What is it made of?
Making carrageenan
Carrageenan is a natural product made from special red algae belonging to the Rhodophyceae family. They exist in almost all seas, but warm water bodies are most often chosen for their industrial collection, since they reproduce there most rapidly: for example, carrageenan is harvested in regions of the Philippines, Indonesia, Chile and other hot countries.
Various types of carrageenans are used for use in the food industry, and in total this family includes more than 3,000 species of algae. In this case, of course, not the algae themselves are used, but the substances extracted from them, which are called sulfated polysaccharides. To extract them, the initial raw material is boiled in an alkaline solution, and then the resulting gel-like substance is dried and crushed. Thus, a carrageenan raw material for use in the food industry is formed.
The use of carrageenan
The uses of carrageenan in food processing are very diverse and depend on its chemical composition. So, technologists distinguish three main groups of these substances: the first of them is kappa-carrageenans, which are solid gels used for the production of dairy products. The second is iota-carrageenans, that is, soft gels that are used in dairy, meat and other industries. Finally, the third group is lambda-carrageenans: the most liquid substances in comparison with the listed ones, which are used, for example, in the production of sauces. At the same time, gels based on these algae do not contain animal protein, so they can be eaten by people who avoid it, for example, vegetarians.
In addition to the food industry, carrageenan is also used in the production of various hygiene products and household chemicals. For example, it is often found in toothpaste, hair and body gels, and other products.
However, some types of this substance harm the human body with regular use. For example, it has been proven that degraded carrageenan causes serious diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, so it is practically not used in food production. At the same time, in European countries, the use of any types of carrageenan is prohibited in the manufacture of baby food.