Gelling With Carrageenan

This seaweed extract literally brings together many of the foods and beverages on store shelves. Anney and Lauren dip into the science and history of carrageenan.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello, and welcome to Favor production of iHeartRadio. I'm Annie
and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and today we have an episode
for you about Karaginans. Yes, yes, yes, yes, which is
kind of accidentally timely or didn't know it was going
to be timely. Yeah, uh, because because we we we
try to do something like irishly thematic for Saint Patrick's

(00:33):
Day every year, and and this year I was like, oh,
I don't I don't really have something, um, and we're
we're kind of mixing around episode topics due to my
completely wonky work schedule over the past couple of weeks.
And then Annie was like, no, actually, Karaginans are you know,

(00:55):
super irish, So that counts right because you'd suggested it
before and then it got all shuffled around You're trying
to meet all of these other tent poles. Yeah, And
I was like, well, well, actually, Lauren, which was a
surprise to me, I didn't know that, Uh, was there

(01:17):
any other reason why you first suggested Okay, Um, I've
been meaning to do like one of these food additives
that that works kind of like this for a while
because I'm really fascinated about them and just wanted to
learn more and also right like you know, like like

(01:38):
in my like balance of topics, I try to look
at different stuff that that isn't just a dish or
isn't just um an ingredient, and they incorporate those as well,
and so yeah, there you go. Yeah. Yeah, And I
was excited to learn more about this one because you
see it on a lot of labels, but I was
not yeah, sure what it was yeah, same same I was,

(01:59):
or or how it works or what it do. So
sure yeah, I was just like, yeah, yeah, this was
a really fun one to read about. Um, if you
want to go into exhaustive detail about this stuff, you can.
You can, my friends, UM I would. I would love
to send you some research papers to read. Uh, they're

(02:21):
really exciting more homework, like legitimately read these research papers. Yeah,
I mean, if you want to know more, buy heck
you can. The information is out there for you. Yeah,
we are going to summarize. Yeah, we are a food show.
That's something that I had to remind myself of extra

(02:43):
often in this in the creation of this outline. Yeah, yeah,
which you know frequently we have to do, but this
one certainly, yeah, which I guess brings us. Yes, yes, karaginans.
What are they? Well, Caragenians are a category of starches

(03:07):
that can be extracted from red seaweed that are just
like really good at glomming onto water molecules and forming gels.
They are thus used in all kinds of foods as
a thickener or stabilizer or a mulsifier or binder. And
they're just like super useful because because they don't have

(03:28):
a flavor um and they don't dissolve in stuff like
alcohols or oils, so you can use them in a
lot of different types of foods and beverages and they'll
they'll hold up. But yeah, they're they're a natural polymer
that you can harvest from seaweed, which is a renewable resource.
It also means that you can use them in in

(03:49):
vegetarian foods and they are biodegradable. Um, they're they're like
gelatin but from plants. Uh, they're they're like a really
multipurpose jello. No, yeah, yeah, yeah, not a jello is
not also multi purpose, but caragenen is like a little
bit more multi purpose. Yeah yeah, but okay. In plants

(04:14):
that grow on land, their cell walls contain starches called
cellulose that provides the structure in plants cells, and thus
cellulose is how plants can grow tall or stiff or
strong like um like like like wheat or wood or cotton. Yeah,
some types of seaweed do have cellulose, but other types

(04:35):
have carragenin instead, and in these seaweeds, caragenin provides like
flexible structure and like like flotation capacity. There are a
whole bunch of different genuses and species of red seaweeds
in the botanical class of Florido ficia. I don't know
if I'm saying that right. We just took like a
five minute break from me to look it up. I'm

(04:56):
still not sure. Anyway, A whole bunch of different red
seaweeds produce carragenens and are farmed or harvested for that purpose.
To extract the caragenans, basically, very basically, you you dry
the seaweed, You wash it and then heat it with
water that has been treated to be alkaline, and then
these complex starches will wash out. You can then filter

(05:19):
them and wash them down with an alcohol to like
dehydrate and purify them, then dry that to obtain like
basically like a sheet of hard fiber that you can
grind to whatever particle size you want, and that is
what food producers buy to incorporate into their recipes. And
I did say basically and emphasized because I am like

(05:41):
hell of simplifying this process. The specific ways that carragenen
is extracted are guarded trade secrets, like like Willie wonk
a level guarded because it is an exacting and expensive process.
And there are actually six different grades or forms of

(06:04):
carrageen in that all have slightly different properties that are
produced depending on the exact process that you use. So
so yeah, the three grades most commonly used for our
purposes are Kappa, Iota, and Lambda. But I am not
getting into all that. That is part of that stuff
that I said earlier. You can look into it if
you want to. We're ostensibly a food show speaking of

(06:29):
It's yeah, used to make jellies and puddings and as
a binding or gelling agent in all kinds of processed foods,
from like chocolate milk or just regular milk oat milk
stuff like that ice cream, to baby food to chocolate,
to canned pet foods. It's also used in personal care
products like toothpaste. For texture, in pharmaceuticals like pills, for

(06:54):
the extended release of drugs, and in cosmetics to make
them gel up or stay stable. Yes, multipurpose jello like
you said, oh yeah, oh yeah, m Well what about
the nutrition? Who this one? This one is contested and complicated. Um,

(07:15):
all right, it's been generally assumed the kergenen like cellulose
is not broken down by our digestive system, that it's
like nutritionally null. Yeah, cellulose is dietary fiber which has
been shown to be like physically useful in our guts. Yeah,
basically again emphasizing that there has not been enough research

(07:40):
into what happens to carogen in in our digestive system
to say whether our bodies break it down or not.
And the contentious part here comes in because Okay, when
you extract carrageenen with alkaloids, as I described, you get
like nice, sturdy, normal krogenan, But when you extract it

(08:03):
with acids, it can degrade into what's called polygenen, which
is an inflammatory agent and can cause ulcers and cancers
to develop. There's been concern that stomach acid can do this,
but so far studies have not shown that this is
what actually happens in our bodies, and so carogenans are

(08:28):
generally recognized as safe. If you find that eating foods
that contain kagenin gives you digestive upset, don't don't eat
those foods. Don't do that. But yeah, savor motto. Bodies
are complicated and more research is necessary, indeed, and we will, Yeah,

(08:49):
we're going to talk more about that in the history section.
We sure are. We do have some numbers for you,
we do, okay, because it is a major structural component
of the seaweeds that produce it. Karagenen's makeup between thirty
and seventy five percent of the dry weight of those seaweeds. Wow, yeah, yeah,

(09:12):
And a bunch of our other numbers are going are
like in demonstration of the way that this industry has
grown over the past like twenty to forty years. So okay.
As of nineteen eighty four, over just over forty three
thousand metric tons of seaweed were produced for kerragenen every year,
and as of nineteen ninety one, the industry was worth

(09:35):
about one hundred million bucks a year. Right, but kagenen
use rose five times just from two to twenty ten. Yeah. Yeah,
like like like five times an increase. Yeah. And around
the same period that the number of scientific publications investigating
Keragenen's doubled, only about sixteen percent of those publications are

(09:58):
about food science and technology, though the majority have to
do with medical science. Um. And and I will say that,
like the potential medical applications of Karagenen's are really cool. Um,
other than in like pills and stuff like I was
just talking about, um there being they're they're being used
as like a like a wound covering, like like for

(10:19):
wound treatments. And also they're one of the substances being
investigated for like three D printing organs and healing bones
and stuff like that. So oh so cool, very cool
anyway cool. Yes, yes, and two hundred thousand tons of

(10:40):
seedweed was harvested for kagen in in twenty sixteen, so yes,
pretty meteoric rise. Yeah here yeah, yeah, I am so
excited to get into this history section all of this.
I just y'all know, like we're nerds and this just
makes me so happy. Yes, oh yes, And we will

(11:00):
get into that history section, but first we're gonna get
into a quick break for word from our sponsor and
we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you. Okay. So
seaweed and it's many other uses separates gosh, yes, yes,

(11:25):
because very specific things we could talk about in that
wide gategory oh yeah yeah. But briefly, historians believe humans
have been harvesting seaweeds like condris crippus. I'm gonna go
with it, which is what karagin and balls under four
around fourteen thousand years. Yes, that is one of the

(11:48):
primary Yeah, red seaweeds used for the production of this. Yes, exactly.
There's evidence of it being used but disinally in China
that goes back to six hundred BC, and people living
in the British Isles where it grows natively, we're eating
seaweed by four hundred BC. And this thick seaweed, which

(12:08):
was sometimes referred to as Irish moss, flourishes along these coastlines,
and particularly on Ireland's coastline. Like imagine kind of a
rocky coastline and they're growing up in between the rocks. Yeah,
it has been cultivated along this coast four hundreds of
years at least, and use medicinally and in foods due

(12:31):
to these gelling properties that it has and I found
a lot of things about this. Allegedly, the name derived
from kagen, an Irish word meaning little rock, or I
read in another place meaning rock moss. Yeah, and that
word popped up around eighteen twenty nine and might have
come from the place name Carrigan Head, which is a

(12:54):
cape in northwest Ireland. In nineteen sixty two, a British
pharmacist by the name of Edward Stanford introduced the term
karaginnin with an ion at the end to refer to
the gel that he extracted from Irish moss. We changed

(13:14):
the spelling to an in the nineteen sixties or thereabouts
to conform to nomenclature for the type of starch that
they are, which is a polysaccharidem Again, we're a food show.
Fun times, yeah, fun times with Irish pronunciations as well.
So oh also, yes, I'm so sorry. Okay, I hope,
I hope that I'm not butchering everything this episode. We

(13:35):
are we are. By the nineteenth century, the Irish used
karagenen as a cure for the common colds and symptoms
that came with it, and they used it too to
heal sick calves. They also used it in foods, and
so the basic process for making karagenan at the time
in that area went like this. So you would harvest

(13:57):
the seaweed, you would lay it out to try wash it,
boil it, and then add it to all kinds of
things from tonics, including hot toddies with whiskey and lemons,
a cure for colds and the like, flawns I read
in places, yeah, beers, and as an ingredient in the
traditional Irish pudding blamage. I hope I'm getting that correct.

(14:19):
A nineteenth century cookbook for the Sick included a recipe
for this dish, adding that it has a smell quote
resembling the odor of the sea, which many like. And
it's interesting use these recipes from the early nineteen hundreds.
This is a milk based pudding that extracts the karaghen
in by simmering the seaweed in milk, which is an

(14:43):
alkaline substance. So there you go. Um yeah. Then add
like a little bit of lemon or vanilla extract for flavor.
So so simples are nice, huh. And Kerrigan also played
an important role during the Irish potato famine of the
eighteen hundreds, as a way to boost autrition, because people
would make this fortified drink by adding red seaweed to

(15:05):
a mixture of warm milk, sugar, and spices. And from
what I read, you can still find this drink in
parts of Ireland and the Caribbean. People that left Ireland
for the US during the famine arrived just as the
first seaweed farms were getting underway off the coast of Massachusetts. Yeah,
and this wouldn't be This would be a little bit

(15:26):
extra filling. Again, pretty much nutritionally void, but would help
fill you up, so sure. Yeah. Karagin In, though didn't
take off in the US until World War Two, when
shortages hit a similar ingredient agar and people were looking
for a suitable substitute karagenen. By the mid nineteen hundreds,

(15:49):
kagen in was an ingredient in all sorts of things,
from chocolate milks to ice creams to frozen foods. The
FDA approved karagenan's as safe in nineteen sixty one, and
then that was followed by several other institutions in countries
also saying that yes, this is a safe ingredient, and
in more recent years, kara geden is commonly used in

(16:12):
vegan and organic products. And this is where some of
that controversy comes in that you mentioned Lauren, yeah in
the nutrition section, yeah, yes, and some calls for bands.
So this is indeed very complicated. But basically, some scientists
produced evidence that they argued suggested that kara genen's caused

(16:35):
inflammation and may even lead to things like colitis, IBS
and coon cancer. Other scientists, though, refuted this evidence as
flawed and misleading. But as often goes with these things,
some consumers called for a band. You know, you read
those headlines and you're like wow, You're like, oh, yeah, yeah,

(16:56):
and then some companies in response did remove move it
from their products. In twenty sixteen, the National Organic Standards Board,
which is a citizens advisory group that issues recommendations to
the USDA, voted that karagenen be removed from the ingredients
and products that can receive the USDA Organic label, and

(17:18):
in twenty eighteen, the FDA confirmed that karagenen can be
used safely in food products. So it's been a real
back and forth yeah with this, Yeah, so right, like,
like what happened here is that some research came out
from laboratory studies and some animal studies, so no studies
in living humans, but rather in tissue samples and in animals.

(17:42):
Some research came out that yes, the polygenans that I
was talking about earlier can be produced from contact with
acids and can have these negative results. However, the flip side,
like the scientists refuting this as as being flawed and misleading.

(18:07):
They're saying like, well, but you didn't. You weren't looking
at humans. You weren't looking at like in live human studies.
That's not what you were doing. So saying that they're
dangerous is we can't say that yet. We don't. We
don't know. But right like the controversy, I missed all
of this happening. By the way, apparently they're like all
of these uh like blogs from around like twenty sixteen

(18:30):
to twenty eighteen that are debating it, and I missed
the whole thing. So I feel real proud of me
for that one. Actually, I'm like, uh, fluid undergurator. Other
things are happening in those d Yeah, yeah, but it's
it's still ongoing, still a conversation. Yeah, I'm sure we'll

(18:53):
have more to say about it, but for now, I
think that's pretty much what we got about carrageen in
that is uh we if if you have any thoughts
or feelings about it, um, if they're if you use
it in your own kitchen, please tell me about that.
Oh my back. If you happen to be a research
human who has looked into any of this, ah geez,

(19:17):
that's so cool. Um. But right, yeah, for now, that's
what we've got. We do have some listener mail for you, though,
we do, and we will get into that after one
more quick break for a word from our sponsor, and
we're back. Thank you sponsoring, Yes, thank you, And we're

(19:39):
back with Yes, it's not really accurate. It's like not
quite the right seaweed I think, but that's that's fine.
I got like a like a bubbling from the deep
kind of kind of vibe. That's fun. Yeah, it works

(19:59):
for either seaweed or you, Kulu. Ah, well that's what
I'm always going for, you know me. Yeah. So our
first message is from I think Shamus. Again, it wasn't signed,
but that was the name in the email address, so okay,

(20:20):
whoever it was, thank you, And they wrote about our
turtle episode. I just listened to that episode and you
were not kidding about the wild twist and turns that
were coming. When I got back home, I couldn't resist
telling everyone else in the house about it. So now
everyone knows that prohibitiondn't save the urt. I have to
share one of my favorite notes from Miss Leslie's Directions

(20:41):
for Cookery eighteen thirty seven. She has a recipe from
mock turtle soup made with a calf's head and writes
this underneath, we omit a recipe for real turtle soup.
As when that very expensive, complicated, and difficult dish is
prepared in a private family, it is advisable to hire
a first rate cook for the express purpose. An easy
way is to get it ready made in any quantity

(21:03):
you please from a turtle soup house. It's the only
time in the entire book that she tells people to
just get take out. I love that, don't even try. Yeah, like, man,
I'll get that one from Yeah. Yeah you're not gonna
like it. Yeah you're not gonna You're gonna be mad
at the end. Yeah, Yeah, it's not worth it. Have

(21:24):
let someone else deal with the turtle. Yeah that's pretty
good legit. Oh thank you? Yeah, yes, I do always
love like like there are some episodes that I'm like, oh,
that was a fun episode. That was fine. Um, And
then there are some episodes where like everyone that I
know has to hear about whatever it is for the

(21:45):
next week because I'm like, have you heard about turtle soup?
And they're like, no, wife, Oh, Lauren's gonna tell us
all about turtle soup. Yes, yeah, that is true, Joe wrote,
you asked and I am answering the call for sherry

(22:07):
memories both come from trips abroad. The first one I
studied abroad in the south of France. One of our
field trips was to the lovely seaside town of Cassis.
I'm saying that right, Yeah, Cassis, not far from Marseilles.
We took a boat tour of the famous Colin Kay
steep and narrow limestone inlets along the coast in the morning,

(22:28):
and basked on the beach in the afternoon. As students,
we would usually go for cheaper lunch options, like sandwiches
from the boulangerie bakeries, but for this trip, I was
putting my foot down. We were by the sea, and
by golly, did I want a proper sit down meal
with local seafood. Some of my classmates were of the
same mind. Because a small group of us wandered the
narrow streets of Cassis in search of lunch, we ended

(22:51):
up in a tiny place with the most wonderful and
welcoming proprietor, whose name I unfortunately cannot remember. What I
do remember is how genuinely delighted he was that we
were learning French, and how kind he was with our
stumbling attempts at conversation. After an incredible seafood soup, he
presented our group with complimentary digestifs, an alcoholic drink served
after a meal believed to help with digestion. For the

(23:13):
men in our group, it was either brandy or port,
and for us ladies it was sherry. It went down
so smoothly, and I was surprised at how good it tasted.
It was the perfect end to a meal that I
still think of as one of the best I've ever had.
The second sherry memory comes from Spain. A visit to
Seville or Saviller was my first trip abroad since COVID started.

(23:35):
As we wandered through beautifully tiered tree lined squares, the
trees were usually bitter orange trees laden with fruit. Our
tour guide mentioned that we had just missed the Feria Diabrille,
a famous festival in Seville. One of the key features
of the festival is its chosen drink, the Rebuhithel. It
comes from the word ari bujar to jumble or mix up.

(23:59):
She said that Saville will get so hot that you
need an icy, refreshing cocktail to make it through the festivities.
So the Rebelhitho is a favorite. It's a mixture of
sprite and dry sherry a fino or menzania, topped with mint.
I've read that ratio's differ, but half and half or
one part sherry to two parts sprite are the most common.
Can confirm the weather was meltingly hot when we were there,

(24:21):
and Rebelhitho would have hit the spot. Alas, I was
not able to enjoy one until I was back in
the US, where I promptly hunted down some fino, sherry
and sprite and shared it with friends at a dinner party.
And oh wow, there is just something about the complex
flavors of the sherry mixed with the sprite, and now
it's become my go to summer cocktail. Give it a try,
I think you'll love it too. Oh, I never would

(24:47):
have thought of pairing that, but same, I bet, like
in the summer, you know, Atlantic, it's pretty hot in
the summer, so I'm sure I'll be looking for a
refreshing cock it does. Oh yeah, My go too is
to put soda water, like just playing soda water in
pretty much anything to make it a fun cocktail. Um

(25:08):
and I and I never I'm so fascinated by the
way that the countries outside of the US deal with
like American soda pop um because I feel like there's
like a different vibe to it in other places, Like
I it's I consider it like like it really reminds
me of childhood, Like it's kind of like a kid's
drink in my head, and I feel like that is
not what it's considered in a lot of other countries.

(25:30):
So yeah, very interesting, yeah yeah, oh but yeah, but right,
like I bet like like a little lemon lime flavor,
a nice, nice dry sherry hoof, yes, And also that
I mean it's not like out of that ordinary. But
I have been craving some fresh seafood and some fresh
seafood by like the coast, right, Oh, that sounds so lovely. Yeah.

(25:52):
Oh my god, I haven't. I haven't traveled since COVID.
Um yeah, um, we're we're talking about taking a work
trip soon and it's going to be the first time
I'll have been on a plane since the shutdown, which
is wild and gosh. Now I want that so hard.
I know, I know. Maybe we can make it happen. Okay,

(26:15):
we can make it happen. Yeah. Yeah. Well, in the meantime,
thank you to both of these listeners for writing in.
If you would like to write to us, you can
our emails hello at savorpod dot com. We are also
on social media. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook,
and Instagram at saverpod, and we do hope to hear
from you. Savor is production of iHeartRadio four more podcasts

(26:36):
to my Heartradio. You can visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Thanks as
always to our superproducers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks
to you for listening, and we hope that lots more
good things are coming your way.