Many foods we eat are presented carrageenan. This substance is used to keep the meat moist in its process, make the low-fat foods keep the cream and keep away from spoiling quickly. It also flavourless and harmless and boasts many of the same traits and quality. It works like gelatin or agar. Carrageenan is extracted from a type of red seaweed. It is boiled in alkaline solution and rinsed with water. Next is it is filtered in a similar manner to coffee. This process is to leave only carrageenan and water. After it is retrieved from the water, the substance of carrageenan is chopped and milled into a powder. This powder is packaged, sold, and the last is applied.
The History of Carrageenan
The type of seaweed from which carrageenan is extracted is Chondrus Crispus. It was found in Ireland in the year 1810. Doctors prescribed this content as the treatment for respiratory problems. Carrageenan is the name that believed to come from Carrigan Head, a headland in County Donegal in the northwest of Ireland. In this place, the seaweed would have been found in a great abundance. In the 1820s, the carrageenan was made by cooking the Irish moss in milk. In the 1840s, the use of carrageenan is spread use from Ireland to the USA. It is predicted spread by the Irish migrants fleeing the potato famines.
In the 1940s, a small New England seemed processing industry expanded and it is used to replace agar because agar was supplied from Japan, but it was cut off because of the World War II. In the 1950s, carrageenan becomes a major force in the food additive business, and in the next ten years, this industry was spread out to Philippines, Indonesia, Africa, and another country around the world. Now, it is consumed around the world as the food additive.