Carageenan is a linear sulfated polysaccharide extracted from red seaweeds, or rather Irish Moss to be exact. It is used in laboratories on animals to cause inflammation in wounds, in joints via injection, and is forcibly ingested by primates to cause IBS and intestinal ulcerations in order to test other medications (just go to pubmed.org and search "carageenan"). It has also been linked to colon cancer in lab animals and may alter the intestinal bacteria profile, enhancing the growth of bad bacteria or squashing the growth of good bacteria.
How does this impact you? Despite being prevalently used as a disease inducing substance in medical studies, carageenan is used extensively in foods as a texture aid and is considered a vegan alternative to gelatin. It's also in toothpaste, hairspray, and many other personal care products. It's in ice creams, dairy alternatives, non-dairy cheeses, lunch meats, candies, and several other food products.
Carageenan is a processed and refined product, so many raw foodists who use Irish Moss in their foods are confident that the unprocessed, raw seaweed doesn't have the same impact on their health. To be honest, I'm not as confident as I used to be. During processing, potassium hydroxide is added to the seaweed (5-8%) and the cellulose is removed. It is then concentrated through evaporation. Perhaps the concentration is what is so detrimental, or perhaps the potassium hydroxide compromises the molecular structure sufficiently to cause this inflammatory response by the immune system. My vote goes to the potassium hydroxide personally as it is very caustic on its own.
For a much more detailed and thoroughly cited article on Environmental Health Perspectives, click here.
Note: There are several structures of carageenan (as shown above), and I don't know that ALL types have been linked to these issues.
Time To Get Vegucated!
13 hours ago
I agree about avoiding carageenan.
ReplyDeleteNiki