Carrageenan

Underwater Eucheuma farming in the Philippines for carrageenan production

Carrageenans or carrageenins (/ˌkærəˈɡiːnənz/ KARR-ə-GHEE-nənz; from Irish carraigín 'little rock') are a family of natural linear sulfated polysaccharides. They are extracted from red edible seaweeds. Carrageenans are widely used in the food industry, for their gelling, thickening, and stabilizing properties. Their main application is in dairy and meat products, due to their strong binding to food proteins. Carrageenans have emerged as a promising candidate in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine applications as they resemble animal glycosaminoglycans (GAGs). They are used for tissue engineering, wound coverage, and drug delivery.[1]

Carrageenans contain 15–40% ester-sulfate content, which makes them anionic polysaccharides. They can be mainly categorized into three classes based on their sulfate content. Kappa-carrageenan has one sulfate group per disaccharide, iota-carrageenan has two, and lambda-carrageenan has three.[2]

A common seaweed used for manufacturing the hydrophilic colloids to produce carrageenan is Chondrus crispus (Irish moss), which is a dark red, parsley-like alga that grows attached to rocks. Gelatinous extracts of C. crispus have been used as food additives since approximately the fifteenth century.[3] Carrageenan is a vegetarian and vegan alternative to gelatin in some applications, and is used to replace gelatin in confectionery and other food.

The first industrial commercial cultivation of Eucheuma and Kappaphycus spp. for carrageenan was developed in the Philippines. The global top producers of carrageenan are the Philippines and Indonesia.[4][5][6] Carrageenan, along with agar, is used to produce traditional jelly desserts in the Philippines called gulaman.[7]

No clinical evidence establishes carrageenan as an unsafe food ingredient, mainly because its fate after digestion is inadequately determined.[8]

  1. ^ Yegappan, Ramanathan; Selvaprithiviraj, Vignesh; Amirthalingam, Sivashanmugam; Jayakumar, R. (October 2018). "Carrageenan based hydrogels for drug delivery, tissue engineering and wound healing". Carbohydrate Polymers. 198: 385–400. doi:10.1016/j.carbpol.2018.06.086. PMID 30093014. S2CID 51953085.
  2. ^ Tuvikene, R. (2021), Phillips, Glyn O.; Williams, Peter A. (eds.), "Carrageenans", Handbook of Hydrocolloids (Third Edition), Elsevier, pp. 767–804, doi:10.1016/b978-0-12-820104-6.00006-1, ISBN 978-0-12-820104-6
  3. ^ FAO Agar and Carrageenan Manual. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (1965-01-01). Retrieved on 2011-12-10.
  4. ^ Buschmann, Alejandro H.; Camus, Carolina; Infante, Javier; et al. (2 October 2017). "Seaweed production: overview of the global state of exploitation, farming and emerging research activity". European Journal of Phycology. 52 (4): 391–406. Bibcode:2017EJPhy..52..391B. doi:10.1080/09670262.2017.1365175. ISSN 0967-0262. S2CID 53640917.
  5. ^ Impact Investment for a Business Venture for Community-Based Seaweed Farming in Northern Palawan, Philippines (PDF). Blue Economy Impact Investment East Asia & Partnerships in Environmental Management for the Seas of East Asia. 2017. Retrieved 8 February 2021.
  6. ^ Habito, Cielito F. (1 November 2011). "Sustaining seaweeds". Philippine Daily Inquirer. Retrieved 8 February 2021.
  7. ^ Montaño, Marco Nemesio (16 September 2004). "Gelatin, gulaman, 'JellyAce,' atbp". PhilStar Global. Retrieved 10 February 2021.
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference efsa was invoked but never defined (see the help page).