WEBVTT - What is carrageenan? 0:00:00.640 --> 0:00:03.680 Welcome to brain Stuff from house Stuff Works dot com, 0:00:03.680 --> 0:00:15.280 where smart happens him Marshall Brain with today's question, what 0:00:15.600 --> 0:00:19.720 is kara gen in? If you've read the ingredient labels 0:00:19.760 --> 0:00:22.639 on the things we eat each day, you can find 0:00:22.720 --> 0:00:27.000 some pretty weird sounding stuff. That's because processed foods have 0:00:27.240 --> 0:00:30.920 some amazing things that they have to do. For example, 0:00:31.160 --> 0:00:34.400 a cookie might get made in Texas, trucked across the 0:00:34.440 --> 0:00:36.720 country in the middle of the summer, sit in a 0:00:36.720 --> 0:00:39.159 warehouse for a couple of weeks before it's sold, and 0:00:39.240 --> 0:00:42.000 then ride home in the trunk of your car, and 0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:45.080 when you open the package, you expect that cookie to 0:00:45.200 --> 0:00:48.279 look perfect. That's not an easy thing to do. It 0:00:48.320 --> 0:00:52.040 turns out things like liquids and cheese can be even 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:57.920 more problematic because their natural inclination is to separate foam, melt, precipitate, 0:00:57.960 --> 0:01:00.680 and so on, especially after they bound down the road 0:01:00.720 --> 0:01:04.880 for a thousand miles. That's why many foods contain chemicals 0:01:04.880 --> 0:01:08.360 known as gums. Two gums that are pretty familiar are 0:01:08.480 --> 0:01:12.080 gelatin and corn starch. If you look at processed food 0:01:12.160 --> 0:01:15.039 you see all sorts of other gums, like karagene in 0:01:15.480 --> 0:01:19.840 xanthem gums, cellulos gum, locust, bean gum, agar, and so on. 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:24.399 Food scientists the people who make process foods, use these 0:01:24.440 --> 0:01:29.600 substances for four main reasons. First, they thicken things. Ice cream, 0:01:29.640 --> 0:01:34.840 marshmallow fluff, pancake syrup and so on all benefit from thickening. Second, 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:39.199 they emulsify things. They help liquids to stay mixed together 0:01:39.240 --> 0:01:43.959 without separating. Third, they change the texture of things. Generally, 0:01:43.959 --> 0:01:47.840 a gum will make something thicker or chewier. Fourth, they 0:01:47.960 --> 0:01:52.279 stabilize crystals. A gum might help prevent sugar or ice 0:01:52.400 --> 0:01:57.480 from crystallizing. These are all handicapabilities when making food products 0:01:57.480 --> 0:02:00.160 that have to look good for several months after or 0:02:00.200 --> 0:02:03.440 trucking them across the country. The reason why a normal 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:07.000 cook usually doesn't need to use things like kara gene 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:09.799 in or xanthem gum is because the food and normal 0:02:09.880 --> 0:02:13.880 cook makes gets eaten very quickly and it's not mistreated. 0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:18.120 A cook can use less expensive things like gelatin, flour 0:02:18.360 --> 0:02:22.200 or eggs because the time span between cooking and consumption 0:02:22.320 --> 0:02:25.560 is so short. Karagin In, by the way, is a 0:02:25.680 --> 0:02:29.800 seaweed product. This particular type of seaweed is common in 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:33.520 the Atlantic Ocean near Britain, Continental Europe, and North America. 0:02:33.960 --> 0:02:37.240 You boil the seaweed to extract the karagin in. In 0:02:37.320 --> 0:02:42.160 that sense, karagina is completely natural. It's not much different 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:46.320 from tomato paste and its creation. For more on this 0:02:46.520 --> 0:02:49.040 and thousands of other topics because it how stuff works. 0:02:49.040 --> 0:02:53.560 Dot com