By Donna Berry, Contributing Editor
With the new decade comes a very different consumer than the one who welcomed the 21st century. Surveys across the board show that today’s consumers are eating more at home, but not necessarily preparing meals from scratch, as their lifestyles are more hectic than ever before.
They are also more frugal when it comes to food purchases, while at the same time demanding more in terms of better-for-you positioning, convenience and a cleaner label.
Luckily, all-natural stabilizers help formulators develop such meal-time masterpieces.
Keeping labels natural
“Consumers are more interested in natural than ever before, so there is definitely a growing demand for natural stabilizers,” says Diana Briceno, marketing manager, wholesome ingredients, National Starch Food Innovation, Bridgewater, NJ.
Stabilizers are polymeric carbohydrates such as gums, fibers and starches, as well as select proteins, that can—as the term suggests—stabilize a food system. “Stabilizing ingredients help minimize water migration, prevent oil from separating, improve mouthfeel, provide suspension, increase viscosity, prevent ice-crystal development and more,” says Grace Wang, food scientist, TIC Gums, Belcamp, MD.
Though FDA does not label any stabilizing ingredient as being “natural,” certain stabilizer manufacturing processes render them “unnatural.” Some ingredients are significantly altered from their original form and, as a result, are considered artificial or synthetic. So, by default, the generally held industry consensus is: If a stabilizer is not man-made, it must be natural. Such ingredients qualify for use in foods labeled as natural, even though the descriptor natural largely remains ambiguous in today’s food marketplace.
Natural-foods retail leader Whole Foods maintains a list of ingredients that cannot be present in the foods it sells. “This serves as a good guideline as to what constitutes being a natural ingredient,” says Briceno. Most stabilizers are not on that list of unacceptable ingredients.
This is a good thing, as according to Briceno, most processed foods need some sort of stabilization at some point during production, transportation, storage and serving. “Making Alfredo sauce from scratch is very different than warming up one that is commercially produced, where it not only goes through many different cooking and retorting steps at the plant, but also has to be shipped, warehoused and placed on the shelf for six months. And yes, the consumer expects it to look and taste like homemade when it is served,” she says. “That’s when stabilizers come into play. For example, starch allows the sauce to maintain its water retention and not separate or gel. It also helps maintain the type of viscosity a consumer expects when it is warmed and served.
“The same is true for a pudding,” Briceno adds. “A non-stabilized refrigerated pudding will lose integrity pretty quickly, and become thick and cohesive with irregular particles and moisture separation. Starch keeps the pudding homogeneous and creamy throughout shelf life.”
Carbohydrate options
Starch is just one of many carbohydrates that function to stabilize food systems. “Carbohydrate-based stabilizers are directly sourced from natural raw materials and are refined for use as a food ingredient,” says Andrew Ehiwe, senior application scientist, hydrocolloids, Danisco USA, Inc., New Century, KS. “As long as the process does not chemically modify the stabilizer or blend it with any foreign material, it is considered natural by most authorities.
“Some countries only consider stabilizers obtained via physical extraction processes as being natural,” continues Ehiwe. “Physical extraction involves physical separation processes, such as grinding, milling, sieving and dehydration. The chemical nature of the ingredient is never modified.” Examples include guar gum, locust bean gum and native starches.
“Sometimes, in order to extract the functional ingredient, the raw material must be soaked in hot water, acid or alkaline, and/or is a fermentation byproduct such as xanthan gum. This is followed by precipitation, washing, drying and grinding to required particle sizes,” Ehiwe adds. “Oftentimes, a solvent may be used in the precipitation step, and be recovered in the end. However, there is the possibility of a conformational change in structure and small quantities of precipitating solvent remaining. The hot water/acid/alkaline extraction method falls under a grey area, and authorities often debate as to whether an ingredient processed in this manner is natural or not.
