Carrageenan- Making your desserts the right type!

Trying a variety of foods, especially in the form of desserts often require thickening and gelling of the ingredients whether we talk about ice cream non-dairy kind of milk, cottage cheese, jelly, pudding, and even the infant formula all these products require additives that are helpful in converting them into a gel-like structure and add thickness to it, in order to serve these products in their best form. Often in order to make them thicker, and to bring them in a gel-like state, people used gelatin. Although gelatin had been effective for it, however, it had been a subject to criticism for a very long time this is because of the fact that it had been driven from an animal source. Thus, carrageenan manufacturers introduced us to the option of using carrageenan. Carrageenan, being a plat-based product is an amazing alternate to gelatin.

All, you need to know about Carrageenan

Carrageenan is an extract of polysaccharides that is driven from the red seaweed which is usually known as Irish Moss. It is comprised of galactose with some degree of sulfation that could be between 15% to 40%. It is an edible seaweed that has been used for ages especially by the natives of Britain’s Isle as they have been using this product for a time of almost a hundred years in their cooking and food. They work over the temperature factor as on heating they for bonds that are double helical and they have a property to create junction when they cool down, forming a gel-like structure. This property of the carrageenan is also known as "thixotropy" this property is very valuable in various applications such as the making of cold-filled dairy desserts.

Selecting the right Carrageenan

If we talk about the types of Carrageenan that exist, we get to see that there are basically three types of Carrageenan that are being supplied around the world by carrageenan suppliers, these types are categorized as:

1. Alcohol processed refined carrageenan.
2. Potassium chloride processed refined carrageenan.
3. Semi-refined carrageenan, which is also known as the PNG (Philippine Natural Grade) or PES (Processed Eucheuma Seaweed). This has only more recently been approved for food applications.

Carrageenan, adding life to your food:

Carrageenan is preferred to be used around the world to change the texture of the product not only because of the fact that it is a plant-based product but also because it is an easy to use and a widely available product that is used in very various applications all around the world. Some of these applications are:

1. In the manufacturing of Dairy products
2. Making desserts that are made from dairy products (for making the milk gel-like, for the flans, multi-layered desserts, mousses)

• For making Ice Creams (especially in combination with guar gum, locust bean gum, and alginates)

• It is used in Powder Products as well, for instance:

3.Dessert, Custard

4.Bakery Creams

5.Homemade Flans

6.Water Gel Desserts

7.Glazing

• Stabilization of
• Chocolate Drinks
• Creams
• Meat & Fish

• Injections (hams, poultry)
• Canned Foods (in combination with locust bean gum for human and pet food)
• Fat Reduction (hamburgers)