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Xanthan gum

04/05/2012 //  by Michelle Berridale Johnson//  14 Comments

Ingrid Greenfield has always been on the far left of the healthy food movement. Her husband, Tom, is an osteopath, naturopath and craniosacral therapist and works with the D’Adamo blood group theories. (The D’Adamo theory says that your ideal diet can be worked out from your blood group – see Tom’s article on the FM site for more detail.)

Ingrid runs Artisan Bread Organic, a bakery in Whitstable in Kent that only uses organic and biodynamic ingredients: whole grain flours freshly milled on a traditonal stone mill every day, revitalised water, natural leaven and Seagreens seaweed to add calcium and nutrients to their breads. On separate millstones they grind naturally gluten-free flours to use in the breads that they make for dairy-free, wheat-free, gluten-free, salt-free, baker’s yeast-free, blood group and geno type diets.

Ingrid has always been vocally opposed to factory made bread, and is especially upset by factory made ‘freefrom’ bread as she maintains that no one whose health is compromised, is ever going to get well by eating manufactured foods that include additives, enzymes and manufacturing aids. She thoroughly disapproves of what I like to think is our more pragmatic approach to freefree…

While I agree that eating the kind of food that Ingrid recommends is the ideal, I just do not believe that the majority of people will be able to get their heads around so dramatic a change to their daily regime, and therefore they will not stick to it. So I prefer to take a more gradualist approach by first removing the worst dietary offenders (dairy or wheat) and then using a pincer action on both the manufacturers and on those with dietary problems: encourage manufacturers to minimise additive use and improve the nutritional profile of their products and encourage allergy/intolerance sufferers to cook more of their own food from scratch using a wider range of natural fresh ingredients and excluding their own particular problem foods. I am not sure that I ever expect the food eaten by the average person on a ‘freefrom’ diet to reach quite the health level of  Ingrid’s breads, but I would hope that they would end up on a reasonably good, at least partially home cooked, healthy and allergen free diet.

Anyhow, one of Ingrid’s biggest bete noires is xanthan gum. She has lectured me on a number of occasions on what a dietary disaster it is and how freefrom breads, such as Genius, are no better for the health of coeliacs and wheat intolerants than eating Mother’s Pride. Ingrid’s basic objection to xanthan gum is that it is a totally unnecessary manufactured additive, but she has also warned that it could, in itself, be an allergen. And now it looks as though she could be right…

Xanthan gum is an exopolysaccaride which is grown or fermented from the bacteria Xanthomonas campestris, the bacteria which cause black rot on cruciferous vegetables such as brassicas (cabbages, cauliflowers etc). The bacteria can be grown on corn, wheat, soya, whey or dairy products. After around four days the fermented ‘broth’ is pasteurised and then dried to make a powder.  When liquid is added to a tiny amount of this powder it forms a thick viscous syrup which is invaluable not only in gluten-free baking (where it largely replaces the ‘gluey’ properties of gluten) but in a wide range of other food products such as salad dressings, ice creams, sauces, frozen foods and drinks. It was discovered by researchers at the USDA and first appeared in food products in the 1960s under the brand name Kelco.

Xanthan gum is both cheap and easy to make and has been a boon to the freefrom industry as it makes the whole business of baking ‘gluten free’ very much easier. However, as its use has spread so, inevitably, have problems arisen.

Whatever you may think about the very wide use of a gum derived from a cabbage-rotting bacterium in food manufacture (if you are Ingrid, not a lot…), if you are highly allergic/intolerant to corn, wheat, soya or dairy you should be concerned about what medium the gum was grown on as it is possible that residual protein fractions from the growing medium may make it through into the gum. The problem here is that, as of now, it is almost impossible to discover what growing medium might have been used for any specific batch of gum and although corn is probably the most common, it is certainly not universal.

A post from Wendy Cohan on celiac.com suggests that xanthan gum itself can cause an allergic reaction which is very similar to a coeliac reaction, except without the pain e.g. bloating, gas and diarrhoea. (She advises using guar gum instead, a more ‘natural product in that it is just the ground starchy part of the guar bean.) However, xanthan gum is an efficient laxative according to a 1993 study from the University of Sheffield, so it might well be responsible for gassy and diarrhoea symptoms. There is also the possibility that, since it is a fermented product, it could affect someone who was super-sensitive to mould.

So, sorry guys….It looks as though that could be another whole range of products off the menu for those who are particularly sensitive. (And if you want to know how sensitive people can be, take a look at Micki Rose’s Truly Gluten Free site…) Indeed, there is an argument to suggest that even if you do not have any overt symptoms (silent coeliac disease, for example), that extra fraction of protein or allergen could be doing you harm even though you are not aware of it.

The way forward? Well, xanthan gum is far too useful a product for freefrom cooks and the freefrom food industry to give up without a struggle. So maybe the first move would be for xanthan gum manufacturers to specify the substrate on which the bacterium was grown so that at least the allergic/intolerant consumer can choose only to eat products using a xanthan gum grown on a base that they can tolerate.

Category: Allergies, Alternative/Complementary Health, Dairy-free, Food, Food/Health Policy, FreeFrom Food, Gluten-free, NutritionTag: additives, Artisan Bread Organic, biodynamic, coeliac disease, corn allergy, D'Adamo blood group theory, Genius gluten-free bread, gluten-free baking, Ingrid Greenfield, Kelco, manufacturing aids, mould allergy, natural leaven, organic flour, Seagreens seaweed, soy allergy, stone mill ground flour, Tom Greenfield, xanthan gum, xanthan gum as a laxative, Xanthomonas campestris

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. James

    04/05/2012 at 17:35

    Having used guar gum on and off for years for its ability to control blood sugars, I can confirm that it is a very useful product. I’m no baking expert, but if it does the same as xanthan gum without the possible allergenic side effects it should not be that difficult for freefrom bakers to substitute the one for the other?

  2. Michelle

    04/05/2012 at 18:13

    To be honest, I don’t know, James – being a ‘natural’ products, it may not be as stable or as controllable as the xanthan. But if the word gets around that xanthan gum could be a problem I would imagine that some R&D departments are going to be getting busy with the guar!

  3. Jackie

    04/05/2012 at 19:51

    It kind of begs the question, why don’t they grow a bacteria that lives on cruciferous vegetables on cruciferous vegetables rather than grain or dairy – or is that too rational?

  4. Micki

    05/05/2012 at 11:55

    Well said, Jackie. Why use common allergens as substrates in the first place; there are lots of starches that could be used I would imagine? Most manufacturers say that there is none left after fermentation in the finished product, but I don’t believe that is true. Certainly I have seen enough people react to corn-derived xanthan gum for whatever reason. I think it depends maybe on what is being tested for. I trust my body more than testing, I’m afraid!

  5. haljam

    07/05/2012 at 11:13

    i do agree with what you say ” encourage manufacturers to minimise additive use and improve the nutritional profile of their products and encourage allergy/intolerance sufferers to cook more of their own food from scratch using a wider range of natural fresh ingredients and excluding their own particular problem foods”
    I suppose it has to be a step by step change .

  6. Michelle

    08/05/2012 at 16:41

    We have just had an interesting email from someone who read about xanthan gum on the FoodsMatter site. She says:
    Your recent newsletter was also very interesting, especially the article about xanthan gum. As you say, it is widely used in food, but I don’t think that you mentioned that it is also widely used in topical applications too. I try to avoid all products, both topical and ingestible, that contain derivatives from my allergen grain, but on occasions when I have accidentally used a topical product which contains xanthan gum I have broken out in a rash and red blotches, which can also be very itchy. Another time, I used a hand cream and almost immediately got very wheezy and tight chested – the trigger could only have been the cream, as I had not been exposed to another else. On examining the ingredients, it contained xanthan gum. All of these occasions were ‘blind’, that is to say that I did not know that xanthan gum was in the ingredients and therefore assumed that they were safe for me to use and was not expecting any adverse reaction.

  7. Jayne

    18/05/2012 at 12:17

    The thing is the Bread tastes awful! There must be a way to bake the fresh bread we all know and love here in UK without the use of Xanthan gum!

  8. Hannah T

    21/08/2012 at 11:58

    I have to say I recently ordered some ABO bread, It came on time and initially all was looking well. I am gluten intolerant so the Gluten free bread really appealed to my diet. I tried the Quinoa bread which was like raw dough in the middle, the crust? – well there wasn’t really any it was just very soft and stodgy overall. The Pea bread which I was excited about also let me down, it was the opposite – very very dry to the point I could hardly swallow it, although there was a faint taste of ‘pea’. The ABO baking technique isn’t quite there yet. Bread also went mouldy by the next morning, so considering how expensive the bread is, I don’t think it is very economic.
    I think I will stick to my usual loaf thanks!

  9. Micki

    25/08/2012 at 11:02

    I just posted a grain free (so truly gluten free) and dairy free walnut bread which I am quite pleased about. Try that for a change maybe. It could be an acquired taste for those of you who can eat some grains but it’s actually pretty good for you and a cinch to make. I had it toasted with honey this morning. Yum.

  10. Sheran

    30/12/2015 at 04:13

    Is there anyone else who suffers from insomnia after eating products containing xanthan gum or guar gum? This has been happening to me for some years now but I can’t find anyone else who suffers the same? I am very intolerant of caffeine so am wondering if these products also contain caffeine.. I would love to hear from anyone else who can verify this.

  11. Alex Gazzola

    30/12/2015 at 11:40

    Hi Sheran – this is Alex, I run the social media for Foods Matter. This is an interesting question which I’ll put out on our Facebook page next week, when it should be more widely viewed. It’ll come up here on Monday: https://www.facebook.com/FoodsMatter/ – and hopefully you’ll get some response.

  12. Liz

    25/04/2017 at 16:38

    Good grief, please fix the typos in my previous comment. What it was supposed to say was xanthan gum causes insomnia for me and I hope the previous poster sees this comment.

    Thanks!

  13. Sheran

    25/04/2017 at 19:33

    Hi Liz – At last!!!! I thought I was going ‘mad’ and so did my family – we can’t be the only 2 people who have this ‘side effect’ from xanthan gum? I’d love to talk through your experiences and how you overcome this? Could I give you my email address?

Trackbacks

  1. Can you be allergic to xanthan gum? | what allergy? says:
    29/04/2013 at 08:48

    […] The FitSugar blog explains The Skinny on xanthan gum Celeste explains why she no longer uses xanthan gum: Why I no longer use Xanthan or guar gum Michelle Berridale-Johnson of Foods Matter also shares some interesting research material about xanthan gum xanthan and guar gum […]

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