Friday, October 28, 2011

Some thickeners food additives

Agar agar is extracted from marine red algae that are 100% natural. These chemical properties allow it to swell on contact with water. Thanks to this, you'll be able to concoct taste light and satiating dishes. You'll find the Agar agar most often in the form of white powder. You can then incorporate it into all sorts of dishes, and it gels below 40°. It is an ingredient completely odorless and tasteless, which has only 3 calories per gram.
Guar gum can best be described as a natural food thickener, similar to locust bean gum, cornstarch or tapioca flour. Guar gum is said to have significantly more thickening ability than cornstarch, at a fraction of the cost. Guar gum is not just a thickening agent, but a binder and plasticizer as well. When untreated ice cream melts and refreezes, grainy ice crystals often form. Guar Gum has the natural ability to bind with water molecules, preventing them from forming the unwanted crystals. Processed foods with creamy textures are primarily held together with binders such as guar gum. Without a binder, the individual ingredients might separate into a watery mess.
Pectin in the plant starting material is part of a very complex structure, which gives shape to the soft non-woody parts of the plant. When Pectin is extracted, much of the hairy regions are destroyed, leaving mainly the smooth galacturonic acid regions, with a few neutral sugar units attached or in the main linear chain.
Sodium Alginate are extracted from brown seaweed and are available in sodium, North and South America, New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa) is used by the food industry to increase viscosity and as an emulsifier. It is also used in indigestion tablets. Sodium alginate has no discernable flavor.
Xanthan gum is considered a polysaccharide in scientific circles, because it is a long chain of three different forms of sugar. Xanthan Gum is used in dairy products and salad dressings as a thickening agent and stabilizer; It is used as a substitute for wheat gluten in gluten-free breads, pastas and other flour-based food products. One lesser-known use of xanthan gum is in the oil industry. As a natural thickener, it can be added to drilling fluid or drilling mud to improve its function.

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