1
00:00:00,640 --> 00:00:03,680
Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from house Stuff Works dot com,

2
00:00:03,680 --> 00:00:15,280
Speaker 1: where smart happens him Marshall Brain with today's question, what

3
00:00:15,600 --> 00:00:19,720
Speaker 1: is kara gen in? If you've read the ingredient labels

4
00:00:19,760 --> 00:00:22,639
Speaker 1: on the things we eat each day, you can find

5
00:00:22,720 --> 00:00:27,000
Speaker 1: some pretty weird sounding stuff. That's because processed foods have

6
00:00:27,240 --> 00:00:30,920
Speaker 1: some amazing things that they have to do. For example,

7
00:00:31,160 --> 00:00:34,400
Speaker 1: a cookie might get made in Texas, trucked across the

8
00:00:34,440 --> 00:00:36,720
Speaker 1: country in the middle of the summer, sit in a

9
00:00:36,720 --> 00:00:39,159
Speaker 1: warehouse for a couple of weeks before it's sold, and

10
00:00:39,240 --> 00:00:42,000
Speaker 1: then ride home in the trunk of your car, and

11
00:00:42,120 --> 00:00:45,080
Speaker 1: when you open the package, you expect that cookie to

12
00:00:45,200 --> 00:00:48,279
Speaker 1: look perfect. That's not an easy thing to do. It

13
00:00:48,320 --> 00:00:52,040
Speaker 1: turns out things like liquids and cheese can be even

14
00:00:52,080 --> 00:00:57,920
Speaker 1: more problematic because their natural inclination is to separate foam, melt, precipitate,

15
00:00:57,960 --> 00:01:00,680
Speaker 1: and so on, especially after they bound down the road

16
00:01:00,720 --> 00:01:04,880
Speaker 1: for a thousand miles. That's why many foods contain chemicals

17
00:01:04,880 --> 00:01:08,360
Speaker 1: known as gums. Two gums that are pretty familiar are

18
00:01:08,480 --> 00:01:12,080
Speaker 1: gelatin and corn starch. If you look at processed food

19
00:01:12,160 --> 00:01:15,039
Speaker 1: you see all sorts of other gums, like karagene in

20
00:01:15,480 --> 00:01:19,840
Speaker 1: xanthem gums, cellulos gum, locust, bean gum, agar, and so on.

21
00:01:20,319 --> 00:01:24,399
Speaker 1: Food scientists the people who make process foods, use these

22
00:01:24,440 --> 00:01:29,600
Speaker 1: substances for four main reasons. First, they thicken things. Ice cream,

23
00:01:29,640 --> 00:01:34,840
Speaker 1: marshmallow fluff, pancake syrup and so on all benefit from thickening. Second,

24
00:01:34,880 --> 00:01:39,199
Speaker 1: they emulsify things. They help liquids to stay mixed together

25
00:01:39,240 --> 00:01:43,959
Speaker 1: without separating. Third, they change the texture of things. Generally,

26
00:01:43,959 --> 00:01:47,840
Speaker 1: a gum will make something thicker or chewier. Fourth, they

27
00:01:47,960 --> 00:01:52,279
Speaker 1: stabilize crystals. A gum might help prevent sugar or ice

28
00:01:52,400 --> 00:01:57,480
Speaker 1: from crystallizing. These are all handicapabilities when making food products

29
00:01:57,480 --> 00:02:00,160
Speaker 1: that have to look good for several months after or

30
00:02:00,200 --> 00:02:03,440
Speaker 1: trucking them across the country. The reason why a normal

31
00:02:03,560 --> 00:02:07,000
Speaker 1: cook usually doesn't need to use things like kara gene

32
00:02:07,040 --> 00:02:09,799
Speaker 1: in or xanthem gum is because the food and normal

33
00:02:09,880 --> 00:02:13,880
Speaker 1: cook makes gets eaten very quickly and it's not mistreated.

34
00:02:14,320 --> 00:02:18,120
Speaker 1: A cook can use less expensive things like gelatin, flour

35
00:02:18,360 --> 00:02:22,200
Speaker 1: or eggs because the time span between cooking and consumption

36
00:02:22,320 --> 00:02:25,560
Speaker 1: is so short. Karagin In, by the way, is a

37
00:02:25,680 --> 00:02:29,800
Speaker 1: seaweed product. This particular type of seaweed is common in

38
00:02:29,840 --> 00:02:33,520
Speaker 1: the Atlantic Ocean near Britain, Continental Europe, and North America.

39
00:02:33,960 --> 00:02:37,240
Speaker 1: You boil the seaweed to extract the karagin in. In

40
00:02:37,320 --> 00:02:42,160
Speaker 1: that sense, karagina is completely natural. It's not much different

41
00:02:42,200 --> 00:02:46,320
Speaker 1: from tomato paste and its creation. For more on this

42
00:02:46,520 --> 00:02:49,040
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics because it how stuff works.

43
00:02:49,040 --> 00:02:53,560
Speaker 1: Dot com