Why is mayonnaise so popular with people? That’s because of the right thickness, strong texture, and materials that blend well. You can imagine if the mayonnaise is too runny or too thick. Maybe you will never pour mayonnaise over hot dogs, salads, or other dishes. It would be sickening. When you find pleasant mayonnaise, it means the manufacturer has managed to find a suitable stabilizer for the mayonnaise product.

The stabilizer is important in stabilizing the mixture of materials in the dough of food products to be homogeneous. There are at least more than 70 kinds of stabilizers allowed to circulate. Most of it comes from natural sources such as gum, lecithin, starch, and cellulose. There are also food entrepreneurs who use carboxy methylcellulose as a stabilizer which is more practical and easy to obtain and apply. 

Stabilizer Spongy Character

Finished products that you often encounter in your daily life may use a CMC stabilizer where it has a springy characteristic. Carboxymethyl cellulose is usually added to only about 0.2 to 0.3% of the mixture. This stabilizer is very practical to use because you no longer need to add any other materials when the CMC powder is dissolved in water. There is a dose that you need to adjust so that the CMC doesn’t cause the finished product to be too soft and not as expected. 

In the food industry, we are also familiar with stabilizers such as gum, gelatin, locust bean gum, carrageenan, and pectin. Each stabilizer has its characteristics. Pectin is usually used alone or in combination with gums as a stabilizer or sherbet. In contrast, gelatin requires a period of aging to produce a thin mixture. 

When you add a stabilizer to a bowl of dough material, you are giving the preparation a new characteristic. These preparations will have the ability to inhibit acids such as pyridine, alcohol epoxides, amines, phenols, and aromatic compounds. Then, the performance of the preparation will increase; long usage can inhibit light, metals, and antioxidants. Preparations without any stabilizers will be easily degraded. 

Natural Stabilizer in Food

The food industry will always need stabilizers to make these food products awesome, chewy in texture, and durable. Stabilizers and thickeners are effective in creating the consistency required by a food product. 

Most food manufacturers use natural stabilizers such as starch, gum, seaweed extract, and others. Food products such as glazed food and cake fillings usually use gelling agents or stabilizers made from seaweed extracts such as alginate, gelatin, and pectin. There are also natural stabilizers that can be used as thickening agents for foods and beverages, such as starch. 

There are three types of starch categories circulating in the food and beverage industry. There is a starch sweetener known as glucose syrup. This is a stabilizer used in beverages and some confectionery products to stabilize color, taste, improve texture, and sweeten them. Furthermore, there is pure starch which is used for binding and thickening, wherein this starch is insoluble in water and alcohol. 

People also use a lot of pure modified starch to process food, canned food, frozen food, and sterilized food. This modified starch is also combined with hydrocolloid gum to reduce the appearance of ice crystals, stabilize foam, stabilize emulsions, retain moisture as an adhesive agent, and stabilize freezing or thawing. 

What If There is No Natural Stabilizer?

Food production is increasing day by day, making many producers quite overwhelmed in meeting market demand. When there are not enough natural stabilizers available in the market, food manufacturers will usually switch to CMC products. 

Carboxymethyl cellulose is a derivative product of synthesized cellulose. By using the esterification process, CMC becomes a cellulose polymer ether that has a yellowish-white color, odorless, tasteless, anionic, biodegradable, hygroscopic, and nontoxic. It is a practical and efficient stabilizer used in the food industry. The use of CMC is highly favored by some food manufacturers for several reasons. 

You can reduce the use of chemicals for bleaching and delignification if you use CMC. You can also get zero waste in waste treatment when using CMC as a stabilizer in your food industry. So, you need to look for safe and licensed CMC products before deciding to buy them. 

Where is the Safe Product?

Safe stabilizer products are only produced by manufacturers who focus on making products and understand the environment around their factories. Make sure the products have obtained international standard certification for safety levels. No need to hesitate to use certified stabilizer products and other cellulose ether derivative products.