Gum In Our Food

I would have continued on in my blissfully ignorant condition if it weren't for my obsessive label-reading. But thanks to my obsession, I am now aware of a certain group of additives that seem to have infiltrated every kind of processed food on the supermarket shelf-- gums.  Specifically, guar gum, xanthan gum, and locust bean gum.  I dare you to find a food that does not contain one or more of these lurking ingredients-- and when I found xanthan gum in pickles, that did it for me. Have you noticed this trend?

So what are these gums and what are they doing in our food? These are the questions that haunt me.

Guar Gum
I first noticed guar gum in ice cream. According to WebMD, guar gum is used as a laxative. That's nice. It's also used as a thickening, stabilizing, or binding agent in food...like ice cream. According to WiseGeek, "the truth is, many of our ice creams, pudding, and canned sauces would be inedible without them [gums]." Really? First of all, ice cream is perfectly delicious without guar gum or any other gum-- try making your own, or if you're a serious fan of convenience like myself, try Haagen-Dazs brand ice cream -- five ingredients, no gum. Secondly, you probably don't want to be eating puddings and sauces that can't be made "edible" without exotic gum additives because of all the other fake food ingredients they contain. My mother used to make wonderful pudding...without guar gum. Imagine that. To be fair, guar gum is a natural ingredient that is minimally processed. That's more than you can say for most ingredients these days. That said, it's a product of India, and we can only guess as to agricultural methods. Are they spraying their crops with chemical fertilizers, for instance? And, guar gum has its place, in that it makes a good substitute binder in gluten-free foods, but I will forever protest its presence in ice cream.

Locust Bean Gum
Another good substitute for gluten-free products is locust bean gum. This product comes from the carob tree. Remember the carob craze of the 70s? Chocolate was out - carob was in. The hippies swore by carob. Carob chips replaced chocolate chips. Who knows why. Trust me, they're awful...chocolate rules! So to get locust bean gum out of carob, all the oils are squeezed out of the carob beans and what's left gets turned into powder--similar to cocoa powder. Like the other "gums," locust bean gum is typically used as a thickener, but since it has a somewhat chocolate-like flavor, this gum can be used as a cocoa or flour substitute in chocolate or chocolate-like products. It has more fiber than chocolate, but then...who eats chocolate for fiber? Like guar gum, locust bean gum is derived from a natural product, but goes through a bit more processing than guar gum. Do we need it in our food?  Unless you require a gluten free solution, probably not.

Xanthan Gum
Xanthan gum is the one that bothers me the most, and here's why. This particular gum is derived by fermenting corn sugar with a bacteria called Xanthomonas Campestris, which is the same bacteria responsible for causing black rot to form on broccoli, cauliflower, and other leafy vegetables. So, okay, it's fermented and fermented food is good, right? Maybe. But the minute I hear something is derived from corn, my immediate follow-up question is, are we sure the corn is GMO free? How do we know? Usually we don't, because this country STILL does not require food processors to disclose whether or not they use genetically modified products. Xanthan gum can also be made from soy or wheat. People with allergies beware. And, again, are we sure it's not GMO soy or wheat? Furthermore, there are actually some side effects that have been identified with the use of xanthan gum-- minor gastric problems such as intestinal gas and bloating. And if you handle the product in powdered form, exposure can actually give you flu-like symptoms, nose and throat irritation, and lung problems. Don't you love it when you hear things like this? Safe when up to 15 grams per day are taken. What if you get more than 15 grams? What happens then? How do you know how many grams are in the food you're eating?  And the ultimate question... when xanthan gum is in so much of the processed food we eat, how long will it take to end up with a cumulative dose of more than 15 grams? Do YOU pay attention to the xanthan gum in YOUR food? I didn't think so.

So, perhaps I'm overreacting. But I can't help wondering, when I see ingredients like these in processed foods, how we ever got along without them. Is there some ominous gum-pusher out there trying to get food manufacturers to use their product?..."this is wonderful, it will make your salad dressing thick!--your customers will love it...it works in EVERYTHING--even pickles! I'll give you a great deal." 

The gum in our food gives me one more reason not to buy manufactured fake food. Figuring out our food supply shouldn't be rocket science.

What's lurking in YOUR pantry?...whatever you do, don't read the labels! (You'll never be the same.)