Huh? This is in half of your groceries – but you didn’t know it
Take a critical look at the back labels of the tins, jars and packets in your pantry, and you’re sure to come across it: modified starch. What exactly is it, and why is it in your food? Keuringsdienst van Waarde investigates.
It’s in a bapao bun, pea soup and chilli sauce – but what exactly is it? To start with: you can’t buy it separately, either from the baker or at the supermarket. A miller explains to reporter Ersin what starch actually is: it’s found inside the grain, together with protein and sugars.
And you can also make it from potatoes and corn, the miller explains. But that isn’t modified starch, because according to him, that’s a kind of binding agent, used to make egg salad firm and garlic sauce thick enough to hold the bottle upside down above your head.
Wonder product in almost all your groceries
Modified starch has been processed to achieve the right binding power. More becomes clear in the laboratory: it gives food a creamy texture, ensures that substances that otherwise do not want to mix can blend together, and makes food thicker. It seems like a kind of wonder product from the food industry.
‘It’s an aid that makes recipes easier to prepare,’ says food technologist IJsbrand Velzenboer. ‘It’s the efficiency booster of the food industry. If a product contains modified starch, you know that the water tap has been left running.’ So the soup isn’t full of tomatoes, but full of water and that modified starch. And that is actually… glue, says the scientist in the laboratory.
Glue soup
It holds hamburgers together, ensures that mayonnaise contains less fat while still being deliciously creamy, and means there are fewer vegetables in the soup than you think. Strangely enough, it’s also found in paper products, as the researchers from the inspection service discover at the glue factory where glue is made from modified potato starch.
Good to know: your supermarket tomato soup contains exactly the same substance as a cardboard box. That same glue, a little flavouring, a little tomato purée and voilà, you have soup. Enjoy!
Image: KRO-NCRV
