Is Gellan Gum one of the best Gelling Agents in food and beverage?

Gelling agents are food additives used to thicken and stabilize various foods, like jellies, desserts and candies, to provide the foods with texture through a gel formation.

Typical gelling agents include natural gum, starches, pectin, agar ,gelatin and gellan gum.Often they are based on polysaccharides or proteins.some stabilizers and thickening agents are gelling agents too.

Among all of them,we would like to pay attention to gellan gum,the most expensive and effective one.

Gellan gum is a water-soluble anionic polysaccharide produced by the bacterium Sphingomonas elodea (formerly Pseudomonas elodea).As a food additive, gellan gum was first approved for food use in Japan (1988). Gellan gum has subsequently been approved for food, non-food, cosmetic and pharmaceutical uses by many other countries such as US, Canada, China, Korea and the European Union etc.

It is widely used as a thickener, emulsifier, and stabilizer. It has E number E418.Pure gellan gum is one of the most expensive hydrocolloids. Its cost in use, however, is competitive with the other much lower priced hydrocolloids.

Gellan gum, is often used as a gelling agent, alternative to agar, in microbiological culture. With heat resistance of  120°C . Gellan Gum was identified to be an especially useful and effective gelling agent in culturing thermophilic microorganisms. One needs only approximately half the amount of gellan gum as agar to get an equivalent gel strength, though the exact texture and quality depends on the concentration of the divalent cations present. Gellan gum is also used as gelling agent in plant cell culture on Petri dishes, as it provides a very clear gel, facilitating light microscopical analyses of the cells and tissues.

references:

http://www.cinogel.com

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A wonderful Book about Gellan Gum-"Food Stabilisers, Thickeners and Gelling Agents" Editor(s): Alan Imeson

If you really want more about Gellan Gum,the above book will be helpful.

Here is the description about it:

Stabilisers, thickeners and gelling agents are extracted from a variety of natural raw materials and incorporated into foods to give the structure, flow, stability and eating qualities desired by consumers. These additives include traditional materials such as starch, a thickener obtained from many land plants; gelatine, an animal by-product giving characteristic melt-in-the-mouth gels; and cellulose, the most abundant structuring polymer in land plants. Seed gums and other materials derived from sea plants extend the range of polymers. Recently-approved additives include the microbial polysaccharides of xanthan, gellan and pullulan.  This book is a highly practical guide to the use of polymers in food technology to stabilise, thicken and gel foods, resulting in consistent, high quality products. The information is designed to be easy to read and assimilate. New students will find chapters presented in a standard format, enabling key points to be located quickly. Those with more experience will be able to compare and contrast different materials and gain a greater understanding of the interactions that take place during food production. This concise, modern review of hydrocolloid developments will be a valuable teaching resource and reference text for all academic and practical workers involved in hydrocolloids in particular, and food development and production in general.

 

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Gellan gum JECFA

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What is gellan gum?

Gellan gum (E418) is a bacterial exopolysaccharide, prepared commercially by aerobic submerged fermentation from Sphingomonas elodea (previously calledPseudomonas elodea), in a manner similar to xanthan. discovered in 1978,1988 Approved in Japan,1992 USA full approved.Gellan gum has subsequently been approved for food, non-food, cosmetic and pharmaceutical uses by many other countries such as US, Canada, China, Korea and the European Union etc. It is widely used as a thickener, emulsifier, and stabilizer.

Compared with other colloids, Gellan Gum has many peculiar advantages:
1. Low dosage;
2. Excellent thermal and acid stability;
3. Good taste-releasing ability;
4. High transparency;
5. Adjustable gel elasticity and rigidity;
6. Good combinability.

Gellan gum is widely used in foods and various other fields.
(1)Typical foods prepared using gellan gum:

Gelled desserts, jam, jelly, pudding, confectionery, sugarcoating of confectionery, frost of cake, filling of cake or bread, and other foods, cakes, and pet foods.
(2)Other applications:

Microbiological media, capsules, perfumes, etc.

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