Xanthan gum is produced through the fermentation of sugars by bacteria and has several useful properties. It is tasteless, odorless, and safe for food use. As a thickener, emulsifier, and stabilizer, xanthan gum is widely used in foods, beverages, personal care products, and other industries. In foods specifically, it can increase viscosity, suspend particles, stabilize emulsions, act as a binder, and improve texture, shelf life, and freeze-thaw stability of products like ice cream, sauces, and baked goods.

1. Application of Xanthan Gum
Xanthan gum is produced from fermentation medium containing sugars
(such as glucose, sucrose, starch, hydrolyzed starch, etc.) in the
presence of a suitable nitrogen source, dipotassium hydrogen
phosphate and appropriate trace elements. Strains function,
fermentation, and then after extraction, drying, crushing and other
procedures.
Xanthan gum is tasteless, odorless, non-toxic, safe to eat, and
easily soluble in water. It presents polyanions in aqueous solution
and has unique physical and chemical properties. In industrial
production, it is mainly used as a thickener, but also as a
suspending agent, emulsifier, and stabilizer. So far, xanthan gum is
considered to be the most superior biological glue in the world. It
is widely used in food, fruit juice, beverage, feed, cosmetics,
medicine, ceramics, fire protection, petroleum and other industries.
Its market growth potential exceeds all Hydrophilic glue. This
article reviews the structure, properties and production of xanthan
gum, and describes the application of xanthan gum in the food
industry.
Application of Xanthan Gum in Food
Xanthan gum is known as "industrial monosodium glutamate" and is
currently the worlds largest production and most widely used
microbial polysaccharide. It mainly has the following properties.
(1) Xanthan gum is tasteless, odorless, has strong application
safety, and has high viscosity. The viscosity of 1% aqueous solution
is equivalent to 100 times that of gelatin, so it can be used as a
good thickening and stabilizer.
(3) Unique rheology. Under shearing action, the viscosity of the
solution will drop rapidly. Once the shearing action is relieved, the

2. viscosity of the solution will immediately recover. This
characteristic gives foods such as ice cream, ham, fruit juice and
vegetable protein. Beverages and baked goods have a good taste. This
characteristic also makes xanthan gum widely used in oil drilling and
exploitation.
(4) Good thermal stability, maintaining unique functions in a wide
temperature range (-18-130°C). It is a good auxiliary material for
the production of frozen foods and baked foods.
(5) Acid-base stability, its viscosity is basically not affected by
acid-base, and the original characteristics can be maintained within
the range of PH value of 1-12, so that it has a wide range of
applications.
(6) It has strong anti-oxidation and anti-enzymatic effects, and can
still play a role even in the presence of sodium hypochlorite,
hydrogen peroxide, and biologically active enzymes.
(7) It has wide compatibility. The mixture with guar gum and locust
bean gum can produce beneficial synergistic effects. This kind of
structural glue can produce gel effect under certain conditions.
(8) When coexisting with high-concentration salts and sugars, it
still maintains a stable thickening system.
(9) It has good suspension for insoluble solid particles and oil
droplets.
(10) Microwave stability. The stable system that has been formed will

3. not affect its performance even if it is frozen or thawed in a
microwave oven.
(11) Good compatibility with salts, acids and bases, and good
reactivity with galacto-mannan.
Xanthan gum has been accepted by many countries as a food additive.
It has become an important stabilizer, suspending agent, emulsifier,
thickener, binder and processing raw material with high added value
and high quality in the fields of beverages, cakes, jelly, canned
food, seafood and meat products processing. It can be summarized as
the following aspects.
The stabilizing effect of xanthan gum is significantly better than
other gums, and it has strong thermal stability. General high-
temperature sterilization will not affect it. It can be used in
various fruit juice drinks, pulp drinks, vegetable protein drinks,
etc., with a dosage of 0.08-0.3 . Xanthan gums excellent salt
resistance, acid and alkali resistance can completely replace the
traditional thickener starch in soy sauce. It can overcome the
shortcomings of starch precipitation, and can make soy sauce fine and
uniform, improve wall-hanging and coloring properties, and extend
shelf life . For jam, bean paste and other flavored sauces, xanthan
gum is used as a thickening stabilizer to make the sauce uniform,
good spreadability, no agglomeration, easy to fill, and improve the
taste.
Xanthan gum is used as an emulsifier in various protein beverages and
milk beverages to prevent oily water layer and improve protein
stability, prevent protein precipitation, and can also use its
emulsifying ability as a foaming agent and foam stabilizer, such as
Beer manufacturing, etc. After adding 0.02% xanthan gum to the
emulsification system based on legume protein, the emulsification is
obviously improved, and the mixed system has a high shear rate and
heat-induced high viscosity characteristics.

4. Xanthan gum, as a stable high-viscosity filler, can be widely used in
the processing of various snacks, breads, biscuits, candies and other
foods. Without changing the traditional flavor of the food, the food
has superior shape retention. Longer shelf life and better taste are
conducive to the diversification and industrial-scale production of
these foods. In the production of various frozen foods, xanthan gum
has the functions of preventing its loss of water, delaying aging,
and extending the shelf life.
Xanthan gum is used as an emulsion stabilizer in frozen foods. In ice
cream and ice cream, xanthan gum can adjust the viscosity of the
mixture, so that it has a uniform and stable composition, and the
tissue is soft and soft. Due to the relationship between the
viscosity of xanthan gum and temperature, it is plastic And the shear
performance, so the viscosity decreases during the processing
operation, and the resistance is reduced, which is beneficial to the
process. In the cooling and aging stage, the viscosity is restored,
which is beneficial to increase the expansion rate, prevent the
formation of large ice crystals in the ice cream tissue, and make the
ice cream taste smooth exquisite. At the same time, the freeze-thaw
stability of the product is improved, and the cream and water are
evenly mixed when melting, and no slurry separation phenomenon
occurs. The general aging time is 2～3h. The dosage is 0.2% to 0.4%.
Xanthan gum can cross-link some water-soluble powder substances, such
as sodium alginate, casein, methyl cellulose and polyethylene glycol
cellulose sodium salt, to make a binder. This adhesive is used in
food processing to improve texture and increase film-forming
properties. This property of xanthan gum can be used to make granular
pastes. Compared with traditional pastes, pastes made of xanthan gum
have low scattering properties, high uniformity and solubility, good
fluidity and filling performance, and excellent solid storage
properties due to non-cohesiveness.