Carrageenan is a food additive that is extracted from red seaweed. It is used as a thickener and emulsifier and is found in dairy products, processed meat, soymilk, toothpaste, and ready to feed infant formulas. I first came across it on an ingredient list early in on my gluten free (and food label reading) life. Once I learned that it is gluten free and “natural,” I assumed it was safe for me to eat as a celiac. However, a few months ago I began developing GI upset every time I ingested it, and I cut it totally out of my diet. Based on what I have now learned, I am glad that carrageenan is out of my life and kitchen.
First of all, the definitive answer to the question, “Is carrageenan safe for celiacs?” is never going to be known in our lifetimes. No one is going to pay for a randomized controlled trial in which one group of celiacs are fed carrageenan and one group are fed a placebo, and outcomes of the two groups are measured. It’s just not going to happen.
Carrageenan has antiviral properties and stimulates the immune system. On a quick search through the Pubmed.gov database, carrageenan aids in killing viruses and is being researched as an additive in treatments for HIV, enterovirus, and human papilloma virus.
When rats are given carageenan, they develop inflammation and arthritis-type symptoms. Many studies of anti-inflammatory medications involve giving the test medications to Carrageenan exposed, and hence, inflamed rats and monitoring for improvement and side effects.
Research has shown that animals given carrageenan in high doses develop polyps, ulcers, tumors, and inflammation of the intestine. Most of the published research on the effects of carrageenan on human cells and tissues is by Dr. J. Tobacman from the University of Illinois, Chicago. In the past year she has shown that carrageenan leads to enzyme changes and an inflammatory response in human intestinal and mammary cells as well. See link for more information.
There are two types of carrageenan. The first is degraded, or low molecular weight, and is the type which has been shown to cause inflammation in animals and human cells. It is not used in food products and products for human consumption. The second type is undegraded, or high molecular weight, and is the type which is added to foods and beauty products. There is an widespread belief that undegraded carrageenan is safe, and according to the Stonyfield farms website:
The scientific literature overwhelmingly concludes that undegraded carrageenan is safe to eat. Based on this independent review of the literature, along with the Board’s recommendation to continue to allow it in organic production, we feel that carrageenan continues to be a safe ingredient to use.
What we don’t have any information about is whether or not our bodies convert some of the undegraded (“safe”) form to degraded (“unsafe”) form after we have eaten it. There are a few small studies from the 1970s which show that this chemical change occurs in the intestinal tract of rats and guinea pigs.
The European Union has banned the use of carrageenan in infant formulas due to concerns about safety in this population. I just checked the website of the major U.S. formula makers and it is still present in most ready-to-feed formulas commercially available in the U.S.
Dr. Weil, M.D., one of the nation’s leaders in integrative health, spoke out against carrageenan in October 2012 (see link), stating, “I recommend avoiding regular consumption of foods containing carrageenan. This is especially important advice for persons with inflammatory bowel disease.”
As a Celiac I’ve made my decision and there’s no turning back now….
Thank you for sharing! Very good to know.
Hi Joy,
Thanks for reading and stopping by. I am curious to see if we will all be advised to avoid carrageenan in the future…
Best wishes!
Jess
This is so interesting! I’ve seen carrageenan and often wondered what it was. Sounds like something my family should steer clear of. My husband may have celiac, never diagnosed but he’s gf and has had mysterious health issues for years. Inflammation is something he tries to avoid so this post is very helpful. Thank you!
-Dana
Hi Dana,
Yes, I am glad to be removing carrageenan it from my kids’ diets as well since all 4 of them are at such high risk of developing celiac disease. My husband is not a Celiac but it’s in his family and we know that he has one of the 2 main genes associated with it too.
Fortunately it doesn’t seem to be in any foods that are essential for us, which is good, and I think it will be a lot easier than giving up gluten was for us!
Jess
Yes, I’ve heard this about Carrageenan and many people do experience gastro symptoms after consuming it. Another great reason for avoiding processed foods (& yes, it is in so many products, including dairy, but can also be found in organic foods). Once again, the European Union is on the ball with banning it for at a min. infant fomula. Perhaps more studies will be done here and hopefully the US will follow suit (right after the FDA finalizes the gluten-free labeling guidelines
Thanks for sharing, great article!
Hi Paula,
If I wasn’t reading labels as a result of having Celiac Disease and being on the lookout for gluten, I would have had no idea that carrageenan existed. Yes, the FDA guidelines will be lovely, whenever they materialize!
I am working on taking all processed foods out of our home. I picked up a jar of name-brand peanut better when I was grocery shopping a few weeks ago and I swear that there were about 8 ingredients in it, including soy protein and rapeseed oil. It was the last straw for me!
Anyway, sorry for my rant and thanks for reading! I really enjoy your page too.
Jess
I can understand your frustration struggling with Celiac. My mother in-law suffers from it as well, not to mention several other food issues, and it has become increasingly difficult to find foods that she can eat. However, that being said, I would like to share with you the following, it might answer some of your questions/concerns about carrageenan. Of course this can’t dispute that a person could be allergic to carrageenan, heck, there are people allergic to water.
SO MUCH FOR THE MYTHS CONSIDER THE FACTS ON CARRAGEENAN FOR A CHANGE
Q. What is Carrageenan??
A. Carrageenan is a naturally-occurring seaweed extract. It is widely used in foods and non-foods to improve texture and stability. Common uses include meat and poultry, dairy products, canned pet food, cosmetics and toothpaste.
Q. Why the controversy?
A. Self-appointed consumer watchdogs have produced numerous web pages filled with words condemning carrageenan as an unsafe food additive for human consumption. However, in 70+ years of carrageenan being used in processed foods, not a single substantiated claim of an acute or chronic disease has been reported as arising from carrageenan consumption. On a more science-based footing, food regulatory agencies in the US, the EU, and in the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization/World Health Organization (FAO/WHO) repeatedly review and continue to approve carrageenan as a safe food additive.
Q. What has led up to this misrepresentation of the safety of an important food stabilizer, gelling agent and thickener?
A. It clearly has to be attributed to the research of Dr. Joanne Tobacman, an Associate Prof at the University of Illinois in Chicago. She and a group of molecular biologists have accused carrageenan of being a potential inflammatory agent as a conclusion from laboratory experiments with cells of the digestive tract. It requires a lot of unproven assumptions to even suggest that consumption of carrageenan in the human diet causes inflammatory diseases of the digestive tract. The objectivity of the Chicago research is also flawed by the fact that Dr Tobacman has tried to have carrageenan declared an unsafe food additive on weak technical arguments that she broadcast widely a decade before the University of Chicago research began.
Q. What brings poligeenan into a discussion of carrageenan?
A. Poligeenan (“degraded carrageenan” in pre-1988 scientific and regulatory publications) is a possible carcinogen to humans; carrageenan is not. The only relationship between carrageenan and poligeenan is that the former is the starting material to make the latter. Poligeenan is not a component of carrageenan and cannot be produced in the digestive tract from carrageenan-containing foods.
Q. What are the differences between poligeenan and carrageenan?
A. The production process for poligeenan requires treating carrageenan with strong acid at high temp (about that of boiling water) for 6 hours or more. These severe processing conditions convert the long chains of carrageenan to much shorter ones: ten to one hundred times shorter. In scientific terms the molecular weight of poligeenan is 10,000 to 20,000; whereas that of carrageenan is 200,000 to 800,000. Concern has been raised about the amount of material in carrageenan with molecular weight less than 50,000. The actual amount (well under 1%) cannot even be detected accurately with current technology. Certainly it presents no threat to human health.
Q. What is the importance of these molecular weight differences?
A. Poligeenan contains a fraction of material low enough in molecular weight that it can penetrate the walls of the digestive tract and enter the blood stream. The molecular weight of carrageenan is high enough that this penetration is impossible. Animal feeding studies starting in the 1960s have demonstrated that once the low molecular weight fraction of poligeenan enters the blood stream in large enough amounts, pre-cancerous lesions begin to form. These lesions are not observed in animals fed with a food containing carrageenan.
Q. Does carrageenan get absorbed in the digestive track?
A. Carrageenan passes through the digestive system intact, much like food fiber. In fact, carrageenan is a combination of soluble and insoluble nutritional fiber, though its use level in foods is so low as not to be a significant source of fiber in the diet.
Summary
Carrageenan has been proven completely safe for consumption. Poligeenan is not a component of carrageenan.
Closing Remarks
The consumer watchdogs with their blogs and websites would do far more service to consumers by researching their sources and present only what can be substantiated by good science. Unfortunately we are in an era of media frenzy that rewards controversy.
Additional information available:
On June 11th, 2008, Dr. Joanne Tobacman petitioned the FDA to revoke the current regulations permitting use of carrageenan as a food additive. On June 11th, 2012 the FDA denied her petition, categorically addressing and ultimately dismissing all of her claims; their rebuttal supported by the results of several in-depth, scientific studies. If you would like to read the full petition and FDA response, they can be accessed at http://www.regulations.gov/#!searchResults;rpp=25;po=0;s=FDA-2008-P-0347
Hi Debbie,
Thank you for reading and sharing your information about carrageenan.
I know that I have an intolerance to carrageenan and I felt compelled to write about it after interacting with dozens of other celiacs on the internet forums who also have problems after consuming this substance. In many of us, carrageenan produces symptoms similar to those of gluten cross-contamination (abdominal pain, diarrhea, bloating, and then widespread inflammation a day or two later). While I am not convinced that carrageenan is harmful for the general population, I believe that those of us with Celiac Disease need to be careful, especially as we likely consume more carrageenan than the general population does (as it is being used with increased frequency in GF foods).
I was able to find the article which you shared. It appears to be a response to a post called “What is Carrageenan?” on the wisegeek.org site (that is, unless the responder that I found had cut and pasted it from somewhere else!) Interestingly enough, I did look back through the pubmed.gov database and found a study which was paid for by Nestle in 2008, showing that up to 8% of food grade carrageenan is of low molecular weight. This is much higher than the 1% claimed by the author of your post. I am not sure where he or she got the 1% from, unless it was older data than the Nestle study.
There have been several recent studies showing that up to 40 to 50% of celiacs have incomplete bowel healing on repeat biopsy, despite being on the GF diet. This, coupled with the new information Dr. Fasano has recently shared about zonulin and the role of the “leaky gut” in autoimmune disease, has led me to refuse to take any chances with a food additive that may play a role in intestinal inflammation. Again, I am not trying to say that carrageenan should be avoided by everyone. However, I am concerned that it may not be as safe for Celiacs as it has been billed to be. Although wheat gluten is “safe” for most, as we know, for Celiacs it is damaging and must be avoided at all costs!
I do appreciate your feedback and found the FDA response to Dr. Tobacman to be interesting. Thank you!
Jess
I started making smoothies for my wife and I a couple of weeks ago. I don’t know why I did not put two and two together, but I added coconut milk to our smoothies and my wife started to complain that something was wrong. She started to feel nauseated when she drank the smoothie. She then started asking to omit things from her smoothie, but then she said nothing is working and said to quit making them as she was feeling to nauseated every time she would consume one. At the same time I was getting bad lower stomach cramps that I started living with. I thought it was the yogurt as I would also started feeling sick with eating cheese. I then started taking probiotics and taking two enzymes when I drank the smoothing hoping to counteract what I thought I was developing lactose intolerance. Well a few days ago I had a very bad night with severe cramps and several trips to the bath room. I then thought I had to get rid of milk products for good. Well thank God that I started searching the internet and somehow stumbled across the word Carrageenan and started finding out the symptoms of being allergic to this additive, well I went into the kitchen and read the ingredients on my coconut milk and there it was. I then went looking the next day for coconut milk without this and could not find it so I chose 365 Almond milk without. The good news is my wife is no longer nauseated and likes her smoothies once again. It took about three days and I also feel a lot better. I am sure glad not to be lactose intolerant, but I really feel that warning labels on foods that has this ingredient should be mandated. There seems to be an a lot of people who cannot tolerate this carrageenan ingredient and like my wife and myself have no idea.
I did not realize that I did not add that both my wife and I have Celiac disease.
Hi Bill,
I am so glad to hear that you and your wife figured out that carrageenan was making you ill. It took me a while to figure it out too.
Interestingly enough, since I wrote this piece in January 2013, Stonyfield Farms (who I quote in the article as claiming that carrageenan is safe), has announced that they are going to remove carrageenan from all of its foods. Eden oragnic foods is removing it as well. I have a feeling that, with time, we will be seeing less and less of it in our food supply, thankfully!
Thank you also for taking the time to post. I appreciate any feedback and am glad to learn that this was helpful for you. I think that the more of us with Celiac Disease who can communicate and share ideas, the better.
All the best to you and your family!
Jess
OK I quickly looked through the comments. Don’t know how I missed this website. I am working with two celiac groups – and we are trying to determine (and If not test) to see if the seaweeds used to produce carrageenan (there are two red species), as well as other seaweeds used in food products contain an inner protein core that is gluten-like – that has an amino acid chain that matches the proteins that make up gluten… One celiac group PhD told me that my issue must be with digesting complex polysaccharides however that makes no sense since I have no issues with any other food stuffs of that makeup and my symptoms are not just GI but joint pain as well. He then went on to say that there was this big amino acid sequencing project of 5000 foods to see if any other foods contained gluten….and noted that the seaweeds must have been tested…yet he could not/would not confirm this “fact”. Through process of elimination I learned that my remaining symptoms were related to carrageenan – and any misstep related to this substance causes me issues. I then ate some canned Eden beans that contained kombu (brown) seaweed – same symptoms as if I had eaten gluten…so there is something about seaweed for folks with celiac/CD or GS – it is all over the blogs. Can’t tell you how many folks who have continuing symptoms have been helped by my recommendation to avoid products containing seaweed and carrageenan. I have requested that Dr. Oz address this…to no avail…one day he had some dairy product’s ingredients up to note the artificial sugar being added and all I could see on the screen was the ingredient CARRAGEENAN!
My theory is that seaweed is the wheat of the ocean in more ways than one.
Hi Sharon,
Thank you so much for stopping by and sharing your experiences with carrageenan, as well as the research you are undertaking to look at the proteins in seaweed and see if they are similar to gluten. There really seem to be too many of us experiences the same symptoms upon ingestion for it to be a coincidence.
I have not tried any other seaweed derived products, nor do I want to now that you’ve shared your information with me, but I will help to get the word out about potential risks.
Please keep me in the loop with what you find and thank you for taking on this project, as the information you find will help so many of us! Just this week I have noticed in pop up in yogurt and tooth paste that, up until recently, did not contain it.
Jess