What is carrageenan?

Carrageenan, also known as kirin gum, lithospermum gum, antler gum, and carrageenan gum, is a hydrophilic colloid extracted from kirin, lithospermum, antler, and other red algae seaweeds, and has a chemical structure consisting of calcium, potassium, sodium, and ammonium salts of sulfate esters of polysaccharides composed of galactose and dehydrated galactose. Due to the different binding forms of the sulfate esters, it can be categorized into K-type (Kappa), I-type (Iota), and L-type (Lambda). Carrageenan is used as binder, stabilizer, emulsifier, thickener, etc. It is widely used in the manufacture of jellies, ice creams, pastries, soft candies, canned goods, meat products, porridge, silver ear bird's nests, soups, cold foods and so on.

As early as 600 years ago, the Irish people used carrageenan-containing components of the "wrinkled hornbeam" seaweed to make milk jelly to form a jelly-like texture, and later brought red algae to the United States. With the emergence of carrageenan separation technology, the beginning of the industrialization of carrageenan production and processing, and after the Second World War gradually became the global food industry the amount of seaweed extracts.

In addition to food processing, jellies, chocolates, candies, beverages, dairy products, meat products and other foods contain this ingredient, but also be used in toothpaste, detergents, body lotions, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals and other fields.

1. Role in Jelly

Carrageenan as a good coagulant, can replace the usual agar, gelatin and pectin. The jelly made of agar is not flexible enough and the price is high; the disadvantage of jelly made of gelatin is that the solidification and melting point is low, and low temperature refrigeration is needed for preparation and storage; the disadvantage of pectin is that it needs to add high solubility sugar and adjust the proper pH value to solidify. Carrageenan does not have these shortcomings, with carrageenan jelly made of elasticity and no water separation, therefore, it has become a jelly commonly used gelling agent.

2. Application in soft candy

Carrageenan to do transparent fruit soft candy in our country early production, its fruit flavor, moderate sweetness, crisp and non-stick teeth, and better transparency than agar, the price is lower than agar, added to the general hard and soft sugar can make the product taste smooth, more elasticity, viscosity is small, high stability.

3.Application in ice cream

In the production of ice cream and ice-cream, carrageenan can make the fat and other solid ingredients evenly distributed, to prevent the separation of the milk component.

and ice crystals increase in manufacturing and storage, it can make ice cream and ice cream organization delicate, smooth and delicious. In the production of ice cream, carrageenan can interact with the cations in milk to produce unique gelling properties, which can increase the molding and anti-melting properties of ice cream, improve the stability of ice cream during temperature fluctuations, and it is not easy to melt when placed.

4. Carrageenan development prospects

Carrageenan has good gelation, solubility, stability and other characteristics, which makes carrageenan has a wide range of applications in the field of food processing and production. And the reactivity with protein is all water-soluble macromolecules do not have, which makes it has a high application value in dairy products. With the in-depth study of the structure and properties of carrageenan, the application of carrageenan is becoming more and more extensive, especially it also has a broad-spectrum antiviral activity, which has attracted great attention from domestic and foreign pharmacologists. Carrageenan oligosaccharides and oligosaccharides produced by biodegradation of carrageenan have unique new physiological activities, such as anti-virus and anti-tumor. It is believed that in the future, the application field of carrageenan will be more and more extensive.

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