Carrageenan

What is Carrageenan?

Carrageenan is an additive used to thicken, emulsify, and preserve foods and drinks. It’s a natural ingredient that comes from red seaweed (also called Irish moss). You’ll often find this ingredient in nut milks, meat products, and yogurt.

What is Carrageenan Used For?

We often only see and hear about carrageenan in our food and drinks, however, it is actually used for two main purposes:

• Conventional medicine: carrageenan is an active ingredient in solutions used to treat everything from coughs to intestinal problems. Known to decrease pain and swelling, it has even been reported that the acidic form is commonly used as a bulk laxative and to treat peptic ulcers.
• Food Additive: although carrageenan adds no nutritional value or flavor, its unique chemical structure makes it exceptionally useful as a binder, thickening agent and stabilizer in a wide variety of foods and healthcare products like toothpaste.

The Carrageenan Controversy

Since the late 1960s, there’s been controversy surrounding the health effects of carrageenan. Some evidence suggests that carrageenan triggers inflammation, gastrointestinal ulcerations, and damages your digestive system. The FDA even considered restricting dietary carrageenan in 1972, but that didn’t prevail. Even today, health authorities are uncertain how to handle carrageenan. Although the Food and Drug Administration still approves this ingredient, in 2016, the National Organic Standards Board voted to remove carrageenan from their approved list. This means foods made with carrageenan can no longer be labeled “USDA organic.”

 

Potential Dangers & Side Effects

Researchers and health advocates who side on carrageenan being dangerous usually quote one of the many studies that supposed link the seaweed food additive to:

• Large bowel ulceration (4, 5)
• Ulcerative colitis (6)
• Fetal toxicity & birth defects (7)
• Colorectal cancer (8, 9, 10)
• Glucose intolerance and insulin resistance (11)
• Inflammation (12)
• Liver cancer (13)
• Immune suppression (14)
• Promoting the growth of abnormal colon glands, which are precursors to polyps (15)

Where Do I Stand On It?

Simple, why take the risk? Like everything we eat and drink, it should be edible straight from the earth's soil, without any interference. When we add it to things like almond milk or toothpaste, we put it through a processing plant which I believe pushes the limit on its compound structure, ultimately adding unnecessary potential risk to our gut and ultimately our health. Not to mention carrageenan contains no nutritional value or taste, so why bother?

Just because something is "natural" or "organic," doesn't mean it's working for you!

Check those labels and always know where your food comes from.