The Safety of Carrageenan, an Extract from Red Seaweed, Safety Questioned

re: The Safety of Carrageenan, an Extract from Red Seaweed, Safety Questioned

alegnals — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:28:15 GMT

I do not believe that Irish Moss used in its pure form without chemicals is harmful. I believe we just need to stay away from processed foods.

re: The Safety of Carrageenan, an Extract from Red Seaweed, Safety Questioned

einzigal — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 15:57:31 GMT

The phrase: "Although the studies have been conducted only in animals, enough evidence exists about the cancer-causing effects of carrageenan to limit the use of the food additive", doesn't carry much weight in a positive way when one considers the commonality of the substance being included into pet foods.

re: The Safety of Carrageenan, an Extract from Red Seaweed, Safety Questioned

Vermont Wren — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 21:36:05 GMT

I recently had cause to use carrageenan and learned that the process to extract the carageenan from the Irish Moss when heated too high changed it making it carcinogenic. Something like that. The reason I needed to use it was I volunteered to make Maple Jelly for a public television fund raiser. Making jelly out of Maple Syrup isn't as simple as adding pectin, one needed Genugel I was told. The ingredient listed was carageenan. It was simple enough but after learning about it (which aligns with what all written in the article and comments), I decided this would be my only use for it. I have no way of knowing how it was extracted nor the temperature used but I do know that I needed to boil the maple syrup and that was a couple-hundred degrees so unless and until I know more, I ain't usin' it again. Any one know specifics on how it is extracted and about the temperatures used?

Maple Mama from Vermont

re: The Safety of Carrageenan, an Extract from Red Seaweed, Safety Questioned

Mrs Yoder — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 17:22:38 GMT

I am curious to see the difference between carrageenan that is used industrially versus carrageenan that is used from the original seaweed Irish Moss. I know of one raw food book off the top of my head that is making a type of tofu that raw vegans can eat made from young coconut and fresh Irish Moss. I had been considering making some to try out in some raw recipes but I think I'll dig a little deeper first. And no, I'm not a vegan or vegetarian,but I like to keep a culinary open mind. :)

Mrs Yoder

re: The Safety of Carrageenan, an Extract from Red Seaweed, Safety Questioned

aramirez25 — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 15:55:15 GMT

i've told many people to beware of carrageenan because its a migraine trigger and most of the time is really msg under another name. i work in an health food store and it saddens me how many items we carry that have carrageenan.

since i suffer from migraines i have to make most of my food from scratch since very few processed foods that i know of are migraine safe. the industry is more concerned about trans fats and gluten free than they are about migraine triggers.

it would be interesting to see if in time some company would actually produce a line of migraine free foods but somehow i doubt i'll ever see that. also the best way to avoid migraine triggers is to make things from scratch.