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Natural gum



 
 
Natural gums are polysaccharide
Polysaccharide

Polysaccharides are relatively complex carbohydrates. They are polymers made up of many monosaccharides joined together by glycosidic bonds. They are therefore very large, often branched, macromolecules....
s of natural origin, capable of causing a large viscosity
Viscosity

Viscosity is a measure of the Drag of a fluid which is being deformed by either shear stress or extensional stress. In everyday terms , viscosity is "thickness"....
 increase in solution, even at small concentrations. In the food industry they are used as thickening agent
Thickening agent

Thickening agents, or thickeners, are substances which, when added to an aqueous mixture, increase its viscosity without substantially modifying its other properties, such as taste....
s, gelling agent
Gelling agent

Gelling agents are materials used to thicken and stabilize liquid solutions, emulsions, and suspension s. They dissolve in the liquid phase as a colloid mixture that forms an internal structure giving the resulting gel an appearance of a solid matter, while being mostly composed of a liquid....
s, emulsifiers
Emulsion

An emulsion is a mixture of two immiscible liquids. One liquid is dispersion in the other . Many emulsions are oil/water emulsions, with dietary fats being one common type of oil encountered in everyday life....
 and stabiliser
Food additive

Food additives are substances added to food to preserve flavour or improve its taste and appearance.Some additives have been used for centuries; for example, preserving food by pickling , edible salting, as with bacon, preserving sweets or using sulfur dioxide as in some wines....
s. Most often these gums
Gum (botany)

Gum is a sap or other resinous material associated with certain species of the plant kingdom. This material is often polysaccharide based and most frequently is associated with woody plants, particularly under the bark or as a seed coating....
 are found in the woody elements of plants or in seed coatings.

Examples include: (E number
E number

E numbers are number codes for food additives and are usually found on food labels throughout the European Union. The numbering scheme follows that of the International Numbering System as determined by the Codex Alimentarius committee....
 food additive code)






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Encyclopedia


Natural gums are polysaccharide
Polysaccharide

Polysaccharides are relatively complex carbohydrates. They are polymers made up of many monosaccharides joined together by glycosidic bonds. They are therefore very large, often branched, macromolecules....
s of natural origin, capable of causing a large viscosity
Viscosity

Viscosity is a measure of the Drag of a fluid which is being deformed by either shear stress or extensional stress. In everyday terms , viscosity is "thickness"....
 increase in solution, even at small concentrations. In the food industry they are used as thickening agent
Thickening agent

Thickening agents, or thickeners, are substances which, when added to an aqueous mixture, increase its viscosity without substantially modifying its other properties, such as taste....
s, gelling agent
Gelling agent

Gelling agents are materials used to thicken and stabilize liquid solutions, emulsions, and suspension s. They dissolve in the liquid phase as a colloid mixture that forms an internal structure giving the resulting gel an appearance of a solid matter, while being mostly composed of a liquid....
s, emulsifiers
Emulsion

An emulsion is a mixture of two immiscible liquids. One liquid is dispersion in the other . Many emulsions are oil/water emulsions, with dietary fats being one common type of oil encountered in everyday life....
 and stabiliser
Food additive

Food additives are substances added to food to preserve flavour or improve its taste and appearance.Some additives have been used for centuries; for example, preserving food by pickling , edible salting, as with bacon, preserving sweets or using sulfur dioxide as in some wines....
s. Most often these gums
Gum (botany)

Gum is a sap or other resinous material associated with certain species of the plant kingdom. This material is often polysaccharide based and most frequently is associated with woody plants, particularly under the bark or as a seed coating....
 are found in the woody elements of plants or in seed coatings.

Examples include: (E number
E number

E numbers are number codes for food additives and are usually found on food labels throughout the European Union. The numbering scheme follows that of the International Numbering System as determined by the Codex Alimentarius committee....
 food additive code)
  • Agar
    Agar

    Agar or agar agar is a gelatinous substance derived from seaweed. Historically and in a modern context, it is chiefly used as an ingredient in desserts throughout Japan, but in the past century has found extensive use as a solid substrate to contain Growth medium for microbiology work....
     (E406), obtained from seaweed
    Seaweed

    Seaweed is a loose colloquial term encompassing macroscopic, multicellular, benthos ocean algae. The term includes some members of the rhodophyta, phycophyta and green algae....
  • Alginic acid
    Alginic acid

    Alginic acid, also called algin or alginate, is a viscous natural gum that is abundant in the cell walls of brown algae. It ranges from white to yellowish-brown, and takes filamentous, granular and powdered forms....
     (E400), from seaweed
    Seaweed

    Seaweed is a loose colloquial term encompassing macroscopic, multicellular, benthos ocean algae. The term includes some members of the rhodophyta, phycophyta and green algae....
  • Beta-glucan
    Beta-glucan

    ?-Glucans are polysaccharides occurring in the bran of cereal grains, the cell wall of baker's yeast, certain types of fungus, and many kinds of mushrooms and bacteria....
    , from oat
    Oat

    The common oat is a species of Cereal Agriculture for its seed, which is known by the same name . While oats are suitable for human consumption as oatmeal and rolled oats, one of the most common uses is as livestock feed....
     or barley
    Barley

    Barley is an annual plant cereal grain derived from the grass Hordeum vulgare. It serves as a major animal feed crop, with smaller amounts used for malting and in health food, as well as the making of alcoholic beverages beer and whisky....
     bran
    Bran

    Bran is the hard outer layer of grain and consists of combined aleurone and pericarp. Along with cereal germ, it is an integral part of whole grains, and is often produced as a by-product of milling in the production of refined grains....
  • Carrageenan
    Carrageenan

    Carrageenans or carrageenins are a family of linear sulphated polysaccharides extracted from red seaweeds. The name is derived from a type of seaweed that is abundant along the Ireland coastline....
     (E407), from seaweed
    Seaweed

    Seaweed is a loose colloquial term encompassing macroscopic, multicellular, benthos ocean algae. The term includes some members of the rhodophyta, phycophyta and green algae....
  • Chicle gum, an older base for chewing gum
    Chewing gum

    Chewing gum is a type of confection traditionally made of chicle, a natural latex product, or synthetic rubber. For reasons of economy and quality, many modern chewing gums use rubber instead of chicle....
     obtained from the chicle tree
  • Dammar gum
    Dammar gum

    Dammar natural gum is obtained from the Dipterocarpaceae family of trees in India and East Asia, principally those of the genus Shorea, Balanocarpus, or Hopea....
    , from the sap of Dipterocarpaceae
    Dipterocarpaceae

    Dipterocarpaceae is a family of 17 genera and approximately 500 species of mainly tropical lowland rainforest trees. The family name, from the type genus Dipterocarpus, is derived from Greek language and refers to the two-winged fruit....
     trees
  • Gellan gum
    Gellan gum

    Gellan gum is a water-soluble polysaccharide produced by Sphingomonas elodea, a bacterium....
     (E418), produced by bacterial fermentation
    Fermentation (biochemistry)

    Fermentation is the process of deriving energy from the Redox of organic compounds, such as carbohydrates, using an Endogeny electron acceptor, which is usually an organic compound....
  • Glucomannan
    Glucomannan

    Glucomannan is a water-soluble polysaccharide that is considered a dietary fiber. Glucomannan is a food additive used as an emulsifier and thickener....
     (E425), from the konjac
    Konjac

    Konjac , also known as konjak, konjaku, devil's tongue, voodoo lily, snake palm, or elephant yam , is a plant of the genus Amorphophallus....
     plant
  • Guar gum
    Guar gum

    Guar gum, also called guaran, is a galactomannan. It is primarily the ground endosperm of guar beans. The guar seeds are dehusked, milled and screened to obtain the guar gum....
     (E412), from guar beans
    Guar

    The guar bean or cluster bean , an annual legume, is the source of guar gum. It grows best under conditions with frequent rainfall, but tolerates arid conditions well....
  • Gum arabic
    Gum arabic

    Gum arabic, also known as gum acacia, chaar gund or char goond, is a natural gum made of hardened sap taken from two species of the acacia tree; Acacia senegal and Acacia seyal....
     (E414), from the sap of Acacia
    Acacia

    Acacia is a genus of shrubs and trees belonging to the subfamily Mimosoideae of the family Fabaceae, first described in Africa by the Sweden botanist Carolus Linnaeus in 1773....
     trees
  • Gum ghatti, from the sap of Anogeissus
    Anogeissus

    Anogeissus is a genus of trees native to South Asia, the Arabian Peninsula, and Africa, belonging to family Combretaceae. The genus has eight species, five native to South Asia, two endemic to the southern Arabian Peninsula, and one native to Africa....
     trees
  • Gum tragacanth (E413), from the sap of Astragalus
    Astragalus

    Astragalus is a large genus of about 2,000 species of herbs and small shrubs, belonging to the legume family Fabaceae, subfamily Faboideae....
     shrubs
  • Karaya gum (E416), from the sap of Sterculia
    Sterculia

    Sterculia is a genus colloquially termed the tropical chestnuts.Sterculia species are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including the leaf-miner Bucculatricidae, which feeds exclusively on the genus....
     trees
  • Locust bean gum
    Locust bean gum

    Locust bean gum is a galactomannan vegetable gum extraction from the seed of the Carob tree. It is used as a thickening agent and gelling agent in food technology....
     (E410), from the seeds of the carob tree
    Carob tree

    The carob tree , Ceratonia siliqua, is a species of Flowering plant evergreen shrub or tree in the pea family, Fabaceae, that is native to the Mediterranean region....
  • Mastic gum, a chewing gum from ancient Greece obtained from the mastic tree
  • Psyllium seed husks
    Psyllium seed husks

    Psyllium seed husks, also known as ispaghula, isabgol, or simply as psyllium, are portions of the seed of the plant Psyllium, , a native of India and Pakistan....
    , from the Plantago
    Plantago

    Plantago is a genus of about 200 species of small, inconspicuous plants commonly called plantains. They share this name with the very dissimilar plantain, a kind of banana....
     plant
  • Sodium alginate
    Sodium alginate

    The chemical compound sodium alginate is the sodium salt of alginic acid. Its empirical formula is NaC6H7O6. Its form as a natural gum, when extracted from the cell walls of brown algae, is used by the foods industry to increase viscosity and as an emulsifier....
     (E401), from seaweed
    Seaweed

    Seaweed is a loose colloquial term encompassing macroscopic, multicellular, benthos ocean algae. The term includes some members of the rhodophyta, phycophyta and green algae....
  • Spruce gum
    Spruce gum

    Spruce gum is a chewing material made from the sap of spruce trees. In North America, it is known that spruce gum was chewed by Indigenous peoples of the Americas....
    , a chewing gum of American Indians obtained from spruce
    Spruce

    A spruce is a tree of the genus Picea, a genus of about 35 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the Family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal regions of the earth....
     trees
  • Tara gum (E417), from the seeds of the tara tree
    Caesalpinia spinosa

    Caesalpinia spinosa Kuntze, commonly known as tara, is a small leguminous tree or thorny shrub native to Peru. C. spinosa is cultivated as a source of tannins and also grown as an ornamental plant because of its large colorful flowers and pods....
  • Xanthan gum
    Xanthan gum

    Xanthan gum is a polysaccharide used as a food additive and rheology modifier . It is produced by a process involving fermentation of glucose or sucrose by the Xanthomonas campestris bacterium....
     (E415), produced by bacterial fermentation
    Fermentation (biochemistry)

    Fermentation is the process of deriving energy from the Redox of organic compounds, such as carbohydrates, using an Endogeny electron acceptor, which is usually an organic compound....