Thickeners are not so scary

Recently, thickeners have become the focus of media attention, from a parent who found that milk drinks can be condensed into "glue" to the "glue" added by a chef when he broke the porridge shop, which made many people really panic for a while. So what exactly is this "glue"?

● Ubiquitous "glue"

For this matter, I am reminded of the recent fashionable saying: five words floating in the sky, this is not a thing! In fact, at least we Chinese, and there seems to be an instinctive love for sticky food. Even if it is not so sticky food, people are willing to try to make it sticky. For example, when cooking rice porridge, millet porridge, and mixed grain porridge, adding some alkali is nothing more than to make the porridge more viscous, not only the porridge shop is well versed in this way, but many people are also happy at home. Or hook a sauce when stir-frying, sprinkle some water starch when making soup, isn't it all for thickening? And people who love the taste of freezing are also not in the minority. Among traditional foods, meat skin jelly, fish skin jelly, almond tofu, coconut jelly and the like are all popular frozen foods, not to mention the jelly products sold in supermarkets, as well as various pudding desserts in bakeries and dessert shops. No one seems to be pursuing what's going on.

In fact, thickeners and gels can be said to be two forms of the same kind of thing. Most of the things that can gel can be used for thickening: similarly, most of the things that can be thickened can also be used to gel (with a few exceptions). For example, pork skin can be boiled into a sticky broth, which can be cooled into a jelly. The game they play is nothing more than a sol-gel morphological change. This kind of game, if played in the kitchen at home, is originally very atmospheric. For example, using "gelatin" (gelatin gelatin, queatin powder) or agar (watercress, foreign flour, frozen powder, qiong gum, swallow extract) to make a variety of frozen desserts, it will look quite tall. However, once it is put into the commercial food, many people express fear. For example, the chef broke the news that the porridge in the porridge store added a type of additive called "porridge treasure", which has "industrial ingredients" such as "xanthan gum".

● Food additives that do not panic

Xanthan gum is indeed a food additive licensed for use in many countries, it is a colloid produced by microorganisms, in addition to delaying digestion speed, reducing the degree of blood glucose and blood lipid rise after meals, no obvious harm has been found. Even foreign foods can often be found in sauces such as ice cream, pudding, and even salad dressings. In China, it is licensed for cream, syrup, raw wet noodle food (such as wonton skin, dumpling skin), raw dried noodle products (such as noodles), spices, fruit and vegetable juices, so it is a genuine additive for the food industry. Moreover, in the ravioli skin and dumpling skin, the amount of addition can be as high as 1%, and in the fruit and vegetable juice, it can be used in an appropriate amount according to the production needs, and there is no limit.

Of course, these thickeners are not needed to boil porridge at home, but it is different in the store. In order to keep the porridge in a viscous state, so that consumers when to drink feel that the taste of porridge is good, relying on starch alone is a bit unreliable, even if a small amount of edible alkali is added, and a small amount of glutinous rice is added, the effect is not ideal, so it is necessary to find some long-chain macromolecules that are more viscous than starch. So xanthan gum and other thickeners were invited into the porridge pot. I speculate that in the so-called "porridge treasure", in addition to xanthan gum, there must be other things that can promote starch hydrophilicity, such as edible alkali, phosphate and so on. There are also insiders who broke the news that the sweetness in the porridge is actually added with sweetener instead of sugar, and some also put meat flavor and fruit flavor.

From a consumer's point of view, there is no need to be too afraid of the thickener in the porridge pot. Because in the additives, their safety is relatively high, not to mention that you don't always go to the porridge shop to drink porridge, maybe there will be more thickeners to eat from other foods. Secondly, eat something clearly, knowing that the porridge outside cannot be boiled and drunk now, so don't expect it to be completely consistent with the quality at home. Speaking of which, there will certainly be people asking: Are there any additives to the various porridges in canned food? Just look at the ingredient list yourself.

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