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CARRAGEENAN STORY... . Hi guys!!!=) thanks for spending your time reading my article...now,i would like to share with you about CARRAGEENAN,a hydrocolloid which have a lot of uses in food industries..i hope all of you enjoy...!!=)

CARRAGEENAN...food additives that is very common to us. carrageenan are widely use as it can act as thickening and food stabilizing agents.What is CARRAGEENAN???...,carrageenan are family of linear sulfated polysacharrides and it is extracted from red seaweeds. The major sources of carrageenan are now the two tropical red seaweeds Kappaphycus alverezii and Eucheuma denticulatum, also known as 'cottoni and spinosum' in popular literature.

One of the advantage of carrageenan is they are PSEUDOPLASTIC -they are thin under shear stress and recover their viscosity once the stress is removed.this means,they are easy to pump but stiffen again afterwards.

Carrageenan also have ability to form a variety of different gels at room temperature.this because carrageenan have large and highly flexible molecules which curl forming helical structure.All carrageenans are high molecular weight polysaccharides made up of repeating galactose units and 3,6 anhydrogalactose (3,6-AG), both sulfated and nonsulfated. The units are joined by alternating alpha 1-3 and beta 1-4 glycosidic linkages.

There are three main commercial classes of carrageenan:
 * Kappa : strong, rigid gels . Gels with potassium ions, reacts with dairy proteins. Mainly from //Eucheuma cottonii//.
 * Iota : soft gels. Gels with calcium ions . Produced mainly from //Eucheuma spinosum//
 * Lambda : Does not gel, used to thicken dairy products. The most common source is //Gigartina// from South America.

The primary differences which influence the properties of kappa, iota and lambda carrageenan are the number and position of the ester sulfate groups on the repeating galactose units. Higher levels of ester sulfate lower the solubility temperature of the carrageenan and produce lower strength gels, or contribute to gel inhibition (lambda carrageenan).