Since its discovery more than three decades ago, gellan gum has become a common additive in the food, beverage, personal care, industrial cleaners and paper-production markets, especially over the past 15 years. According to CINOGEL, today the China producer of gellan gum, some of its primary functions and uses include:
- Helping form gel-like consistency within substances
- Helping prevent settling or separating within food and industrial products
- Texturizing, stabilizing or binding food ingredients together in a uniform way
- Helping with elasticity, structuring and suspension
- Preventing ingredients from changing form due to temperature changes
- Providing a gel base in cellular experiments performed in petri dishes
- As an alternative to gelatin in vegan food products
- In cosmetics and beauty products to provide a smooth feeling
- In gastronomy cooking (especially desserts) to keep ingredients from melting
- And various others uses, including film-forming
So what is gellan gum exactly? It’s a food additive produced through bacterial fermentation using a sugar source, which provides a source of energy for the bacteria to consume. Gellan gum is considered to be valuable and unique in manufacturing due to its capability of creating fluid, gel solutions that have weak structures, a characteristic that’s important for structuring and adding “creaminess.” It also has a preferable setting temperature and tends to keep its stability/structure even when temperatures change or increase. In other words, it has a high “degree of thermal stability” (some studies show it’s able to withstand temps up to 120°C/248°F).
Gellan gum’s uses are similar to those of locust bean gum, guar gum and xanthan gum — all similar products used to help bind, stabilize and texturize products (especially foods). While it’s best to use stabilizers and emulsifiers in small amounts (such as the minute portions added to many supplements and health food products), the addition of a tiny serving of gellan gum to recipes like yogurt or desserts can help produce a smooth finished product.
Gellan Gum Uses
1. Can Be Used for Texturing and Stabilizing in Food Preparation
The most common use for gellan gum is either using it alone or combining it with others products/stabilizers when cooking, preparing dessert or baking to prevent separation of ingredients. It’s very useful for adding a gel consistency to purees or spreads, especially since it doesn’t change the color or taste of foods. It also won’t turn into liquid, even once heated, but rather holds its structure.
Gellan gum is capable of producing a wide variety of interesting fluid textures, including thicker liquids (like nut-based milks), marinades or toppings for protein fishes, or vegetable purees thanks to its ability to increase viscosity.
2. Suitable for Vegan/Vegetarian Recipes
Because it’s produced from bacteria fermentation and not from any type of animal source, gellan gum is a common additive in vegan foods. Vegan recipes — including cultured products or those that normally contain dairy, such as almond milk or coconut kefir/yogurt, for example — are usually in need of some sort of added stabilizer and thickening agent to prevent the products from separating. This is where stabilizers like organic gellan gum, locust bean gum or guar gum can come in handy. Often the gellan gum found in foods is vegetarian-, kosher- and halal-approved, although this depends on the specific product it’s used in.
3. Helps Prevent Desserts from Melting and Is Very Heat-Stable
One interesting use of gellan gum in food preparation is in gastronomy, especially to create specialty desserts. Chefs sometimes add gellan gum to ice cream and sorbet recipes to help with churning, plus it helps prevent melting of cold desserts when a flame or alcohol is used to provide browning or crusting (such as to make creme brulee, flaming sorbet or bananas foster).
4. May Help Improve Digestion, Constipation or Diarrhea
One small study, conducted by researchers of the Chemistry Department at the University of Edinburgh, that tested the effects of ingestion of gellan gum at a high level for 23 days showed that it acted as a faecal bulking agent that had effects on dietary transit time. “High levels” of gellan gum in the volunteers’ diets consisted of 175–200 milligrams of gellan gum per kilogram of body weight.
As a bulking agent, it was found that consuming gellan gum caused increased transit time in about half of the volunteers but decreased transmit time in the other half. Faecal bile acid concentrations also increased, but gellan gum had no significant effects on factors like blood glucose, insulin concentrations, or HDL cholesterol and triglyceride levels. Overall, the study found that consuming gellan gum, even in high amounts above what would be typical in someone’s diet, caused no adverse dietary or physiological effects, but it may have positive effects on symptoms like constipation or diarrhea due to how it bulks stool.
Findings from another animal study published in the Journal of Nutritional Science and Vitamintology also suggest the same. Gellan gum typically shortens gastrointestinal transit time, suggesting improved evacuation/elimination in those who prone to digestive problems like constipation.
Gellan Gum Nutrition Facts
Technically, gellan gum is a type of exopolysaccharide produced by certain types of bacterial fermentation, specifically using the culture called Sphingomonas elodea. Lily pads naturally produce small amounts of gellan gum because they’re home to this specific bacterial strain. The gellan gum used in different industrial and food-manufacturing practices is created in a lab through commercial fermentation on a much larger scale.
As a polysaccharide, gellan gum is a long chain of carbohydrate-based molecules. Chemically, this makes it similar to other food products that are used to bind ingredients together, including flour or starch. You’ll find gellan gum in a range of common food products, including dairy-free milk alternatives, chocolate milks, yogurts, desserts, vegan products, whipped toppings, spreads or purees, and noodles — all of which depend on gellan gum or other stabilizers to keep ingredients from separating.
One of the reasons this additive has gained notoriety in food manufacturing is that it only needs to be used in small amounts and can withstand higher temperatures while keeping a consistent viscosity compared to other thickeners. Replacing the additive called agar is one of the most common uses for gellan gum, since it has similar effects with roughly half the amount used.
Today, two primary types of gellan gum are manufactured for different uses, depending on the end-goal. These are called high- and low-acyl content gellan gums, which are commonly used together in various ratios to help form different textures. Low-acyl gellan gum products help create textures that are firmer and more brittle, while high-acyl gellan gum forms softer and more elastic textures that have a higher viscosity. Depending on the concentration of these gellan gums, it’s possible to create a wide variety of textures/structures due to how their gelling ions work to absorb and hold liquid.
