Flax seed gum (Linseed gum) is a powdered product made from flax seed or seed skin by extraction, concentration, refining and drying. Flaxseed gum is a kind of heteropolysaccharide, a new type of food additive, which is widely used in food industry and other industries.

Properties of flaxseed gum

1.Solubility

Flaxseed gum is a white powder with good solubility and can slowly absorb water to form a dispersion system with low viscosity. When the concentration is lower than 1 ~ 2g/L, it can be completely dissolved. The solubility is higher than guar gum and locust gum. The solubility of flaxseed gum is closely related to the concentration and temperature. Under the same dissolution time, the apparent viscosity of flaxseed gum solution increases with the increase of dissolution temperature. Under the same dissolution temperature, the apparent viscosity of flaxseed gum solution gradually increased to the maximum and then decreased with the dissolution time.

2.Emulsifiability

Because flaxseed gum binds a certain amount of protein, flaxseed gum has emulsifying effect and can replace gum Arabic to prepare O/W emulsion, which plays the role of emulsifying and stabilizing emulsion. Flaxseed gum has surface activity, emulsification and thickening stability.

3. Gelling property

Flaxseed gum is a hydrophilic colloid, and gelling is an important functional property of hydrophilic colloid. Only some hydrophilic colloid has gelling properties, such as gelatin, carrageenan, starch, pectin and so on. The studies show that flaxseed gum has gelatinability and can form a heat-reversible cold gel. The gelatinization point is lower than the melting point of the gel, and the gelatinization point and the melting point of the gel increase with the increase of the initial cooling temperature.

4. Rheological property

The rheological properties of different kinds of flaxseed gum were analyzed. The results showed that the viscosity of 10g/L flaxseed gum solution was about 0.02 ~ 0.08Pa·s, and the viscosity increased with the increase of mass concentration and decreased with the increase of shear rate.
 

Applications of Flaxseed gum

Flaxseed gum has high viscosity, strong water binding ability, and has the characteristics of forming a heat-reversible cold gel, so flaxseed gum can replace most non-gelling hydrophilic colloid in food and non-food fields, and has a lower price compared with other hydrophilic colloid.

When the amount of flaxseed glue added to flour is between 0.1% and 0.4%, the strength of dough is the best, and the taste of flour products is strong, smooth, and not paste soup. The addition of flaxseed gum can increase the water absorption of dough, prolong the formation time and stability time of dough, reduce the weakening degree, and make the stability of dough better. Adding flaxseed gum can improve the hardness and chewability of noodles after cooking, and has better elasticity and tensile properties. The cooking loss of noodles and the turbidity of noodle soup are reduced. Therefore, flaxseed gum can be used in noodle products to improve their edible quality.

Application in ice cream

The study found that when the amount of flaxseed gum is more than 0.1%, the taste of ice cream is the best, and the addition of flaxseed gum can avoid the formation of coarse ice crystals. In addition, due to the good compounding property of flaxseed gum and other edible gum, it can be widely used in various food processing industries, such as flaxseed gum and other water-soluble gum to a certain proportion of the combination used in jelly production, so that the gel strength, elasticity, water retention of jelly have been greatly improved. It can be used as a food thickener, so that the product has strong water holding capacity, transparency and anti-aging activity. It can be used as dietary fiber and has nutritional effects, playing a certain role in reducing the incidence of diabetes and coronary heart disease, preventing colon cancer and rectal cancer, reducing the incidence of obesity, and can make nutritious health food.

Application in meat products

Flaxseed gum added to meat products can reduce the loss of fat and meat flavor during cooking, improve the thermal stability of meat protein, myofibrillar protein and salt-soluble meat protein and enhance the gel strength of salt-soluble meat protein, which is suitable for the processing of meat products. Adding flaxseed gum in the late processing of meat products can enhance the elasticity of meat products, enhance the rehydration, eliminate the sense of starch, and increase the sense of chewing.

Flaxseed gum improves cake quality

Because flaxseed gum has good emulsification, it can improve the softness of the cake. The study found that after adding 1% flaxseed gum to the cake, the compression force of the product decreased by 66%, which was 25% higher than that of the experiment with the same concentration of xanthan gum.

Flaxseed gum of Kingherbs is a kind of natural polymer composite gum with great value and wide application. Flaxseed gum can be used as thickener, binder, stabilizer, emulsifier and blowing agent in food industry instead of pectin, AGAR, Arabic gum and seaweed gum. In the daily chemical industry, it can be used as an important raw material for high-grade cosmetics. In the pharmaceutical industry, it is an excellent emulsifier for fat-soluble drugs and an adhesive for Chinese and western tablets.