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In the US, while it is required to have all the ingredients of a product listed, I don't think it is mandatory to state what purpose all those ingredients serve. I have a can of the propellant-type whipped cream, and it says it contains carageenen but doesn't say what it is.

I think there are some companies do tell what all the ingredients are for, because I know I have seen it in parentheses after the technical name. It lends some credibility to the manufacturer, or so I think. There aren't many that do though.

I was at an upscale supermarket (Fresh Market, I think) where I saw a product that had different sections for US and European labeling. On the US side, it had only the technical names of all the different additives. On the European side, it would say something like "stabilizer E201". Since all the ingredients were listed in the same order, you could cross reference the different labels to see what the US additives were.

carageenan is a stabilizer...100%

Yup...you can even buy it online if you want it for home use.... guar gum and all those other additives, too.

Why?

I think you might need to be unstable...   

"carageenan is a stabilizer.."

What does it actually do? Is it a thickening agent? How about guar gum?

Quote from: Sailor Con Queso on April 22, 2010, 01:29:02 PM
"carageenan is a stabilizer.."

What does it actually do? Is it a thickening agent? How about guar gum?

guar gum: stabilizer too - in chocolate milk those two can be used to keep the coco powder from settling out to the bottom of the carton

stabilizer can be used in whipped cream to help the later formed whipped cream to stay whipped longer... it "stabilizes" it


stabilizers just help keep things from settling out generally -

Quote from: Sailor Con Queso on April 22, 2010, 01:29:02 PM
What does it actually do?

Both are physically long polysaccharides, that can wrap around and contain other macromolecules, keeping them in a colloidal suspension. In other words, what cheesehead said... they prevent stuff from separating.

I think you are right, Mark....you would need to be unstable yourself to buy them for home use

I never could figure out why all that crap was needed to try to turn whipped cream into "cool whip".....people whip fresh cream (or the store equivilent) because they want something REAL....and all it takes is using powdered sugar instead of granulated to get a nice stable whip! (I won't allow "whipped topping" in my home.....or margarine...) 

Yep, I'm a dairy snob!    I guess that is why we make our own cheeses, isn't it?

Any "whipped topping" "cheese product" "chocolate drink" type stuff is bad news. Where have the cooks gone?

"pasteurized processed cheese food" ...creepy. they have to let you know that it is intended to be a food...

It's like Velvetta. What is that stuff REALLY??? Kinda like the Spam of the cheese world.

My wife is hooked on Cool Whip "Lite". So how would you make a low fat natural whipped cream that doesn't destabilize quickly?

OTOH, some of these ingredients are being used by molecular gastronomists today...

Look up a vegan mouse recipe and consider using the ingredients you find there. I know it might sound bad, but they can be quite good.

Quote from: Sailor Con Queso on April 22, 2010, 07:17:23 PM
It's like Velvetta. What is that stuff REALLY??? Kinda like the Spam of the cheese world.

My wife is hooked on Cool Whip "Lite". So how would you make a low fat natural whipped cream that doesn't destabilize quickly?

Well, velveeta is pretty easy to make, not that easy to exactly duplicate because Kraft puts in their proprietary blend of extracts and flavorings. But in general, you take cheese, standardize it (water, milk, whey, whey powder, etc), heat it up, toss in some sodium phosphate, alginate, a sodium citrate to react with the alginate, and flavors and colors and resolidify after blending.

Cool whip isn't hard either, and it's similarly scary.

You take some water, blend in a sweetener that has some body to it, like corn syrup, and corn syrup that's been amylase-treated to make the glucose into fructose, then you need something to imitate the feeling of fats, so you partially solidify oils by bubbling some hydrogen through a good-tasting oil, like coconut oil. Mix that and you have this sludge that separates easily, so you need a few more things. One, you need an emulsifier. So add polysorbate and caseinate. Cool, it's mixed together, next problem is how to keep it bound up and how to be able to develop a froth (cool whip is mostly air), so you add a starch substitute like xanthan or guar gum. Carageenan isn't the preference here because the xanthan and guar combos complement each other. And then the last thing you need after you've emulsified and whipped it, is to keep it stable at room temp. So you suspend all that in a wax, like sorbitan.

And there you have it . "lite" just means fewer oils, or a different way to process the oils. You get less mouthfeel, feels less like a dairy product.

If you want to make it a dairy product, use cream instead of coconut oil, or just milk, and add everything for it to froth, be sweet, and stable at room temp.