{"id":814,"date":"2011-03-12T10:21:58","date_gmt":"2011-03-12T16:21:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/?p=814"},"modified":"2011-03-12T10:21:58","modified_gmt":"2011-03-12T16:21:58","slug":"xanthan-gum-thick-sauces-without-the-fat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/general\/xanthan-gum-thick-sauces-without-the-fat\/","title":{"rendered":"Xanthan Gum – Thick Sauces without the Fat"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Todd Barron @ FoodieCuisine.com<\/h4>\n
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NOW Foods Xantham Gum<\/p><\/div>\n

Have you ever had a low-fat salad dressing and wondered why it was so thick?\u00a0 In most cooking recipes, flour, corn starch, or butter,\u00a0are used\u00a0as a thickening agent.\u00a0 The problem is these items all have a lot of calories (and the butter has fat.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

So, how do they do it in low-fat or low-calorie food?\u00a0 The trick\u00a0often can be found in\u00a0Xantham Gum<\/a>.\u00a0 You may have never heard of it, but it\u2019s a common powder used in cooking and baking.\u00a0 It thickens anything you add it to and has only\u00a05 calories for every half teaspoon.\u00a0 The best part is that it doesn\u2019t require much to thicken sauces.<\/p>\n

Another nice feature of Xantham Gum is that it becomes less thick as it\u2019s agitated.\u00a0 Have you ever noticed that you can squeeze salad dressing or ketchup out of a bottle better if you shake the bottle first?\u00a0\u00a0You can thank Xantham Gum for this as it becomes less thick when agitated (or shaken.)\u00a0 It thickens back to it\u2019s resting state when left alone for a few seconds as well.\u00a0 This is what allows it to thin when shaken, be squeezed out, and thicken back once at rest on your food.\u00a0 Cool huh?<\/p>\n

I bought a pack of 4 from Amazon for $27 and it has lasted me for two years (and will continue to last me over the next two years probably.)\u00a0 The manufacturer of the brand I choose, NOW Foods<\/a>, describes the product as follows: \u201cXanthan Gum is a soluble fiber produced from the pure culture fermentation of the microorganism Xanthomonas campestris.\u00a0 It is used in the food processing industry as a thickener, stabilizer and emulsifier for a number of different foods.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve used it in a variety of sauces and as a substitute for fat when I\u2019m cooking low-fat meals.\u00a0 It\u2019s worked great so far and is something I recommend you give a try in your cooking adventures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Todd Barron @ FoodieCuisine.com Have you ever had a low-fat salad dressing and wondered why it was so thick?\u00a0 In most cooking recipes, flour, corn starch, or butter,\u00a0are used\u00a0as a thickening agent.\u00a0 The problem is these items all have a lot of calories (and the butter has fat.)\u00a0 So, how do they do it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[162,54,294,292,379,295,293,378],"class_list":["post-814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-tips-and-tricks","tag-calorie","tag-diet","tag-gum","tag-low","tag-now-foods","tag-thicken","tag-xantham","tag-xanthomonas-campestris"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=814"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1046,"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814\/revisions\/1046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}