Carrageenan
E407, E407a
E407, E407a, INS 407, INS 407a, carrageenan, processed eucheuma seaweed, Irish moss gelose, eucheuman, furcellaran, carragenano, carraghenane
What it is
Carrageenan comes from red seaweed and is used to thicken and gel foods. On the label it appears as E407 or E407a — the same seaweed, processed differently. It is a long chain that the body does not absorb, but the chain can break into shorter pieces, and short pieces do cross the gut wall. The label does not say how much of it is already broken, and the manufacturer does not measure it.
Why BOTIA flags it
How much breaks, and whether more breaks during cooking or digestion, has not been established: in the EU, EFSA re-evaluated carrageenan in 2018 and asked the industry for the data. It has not arrived. In the NutriNet-Santé cohort, which followed 92,000 adults for years, women with the highest carrageenan intake had more breast cancer diagnoses than those with the lowest.
BOTIA CAN
- Detect E407, E407a, INS 407, INS 407a, carrageenan and processed Eucheuma seaweed when explicitly declared.
- Explain the difference between food-grade carrageenan and its broken-down form, and why the smaller pieces remain an open question.
BOTIA CANNOT
- Determine from the ingredient list how much shorter broken-down material is present in a particular carrageenan preparation.
- Determine whether additional breakdown occurred during processing or digestion, or predict an individual's intestinal response.