Sources of food thickeners
Thickeners are used in small amounts in food engineering, often only a few thousandths of the total weight of the product, but can effectively and scientifically improve the stability of the food system. The chemical components of food thickeners are mostly natural polysaccharides or their derivatives, which are widely distributed in nature. The sources of thickeners available for the food industry today can be roughly divided into two categories: natural thickeners and synthetic thickeners.
The thickening effect
Thickeners in the food category is the key to have the food prescribed rheological characteristics. It can also change the texture and appearance of food, produce liquid and pulpy food into the specified shape, and make it stable and even, so as to improve the quality and safety of food, and then the food has the feeling of sticky and smooth palatability.
Foaming effect and stabilizing foam effect
Food glue can make the organization of processed food tend to be more stable, so that the quality of food is not easy to change, so it can be called stabilizer, product quality improver, such as in cake, beer, bread, ice cream applications. In cakes, toast and other food as foaming agent, such as gelatin foaming ability is 6 times that of eggs.
Film-forming effect
Thickeners can produce a very smooth film on the surface of food, which can also avoid the quality reduction caused by moisture absorption on the surface of frozen food and solid powder food. The membrane can be used for alcohol soluble protein, gelatin, AGAR, alginate and so on. It can also be used for food polishing. Nowadays, edible packaging film is one of the developing directions of thickeners
Based on its key efficacy
Into thickeners and gelling agents. The key thickening agents are modified starch, guar gum, locust bean gum, xanthan gum, Arabic gum, sodium carboxymethyl cellulose, alginate, etc. Typical gelling agents include gelatin, alginate, pectin, carrageenan, AGAR, gellan and so on.