Uses of Guar Bean Gum

You have eaten a lot more guar beans than you think.beans image by charles taylor from Fotolia.com

Guar bean gum is the crushed endosperm (starchy, sugary part) of the Guar bean (Cyamopsis tetragonolobus). Eighty percent of these beans are grown in India, about ten percent in Pakistan and the rest come from South Africa, Malawi, Sudan, and Zaire. The gum is a cheap and accessible substance with a plethora of uses in foods, industry and medicine.

Food Uses

You have eaten a lot more guar beans than you think. The gum is used as a stabilizer (keeps ingredients mixed). Many foods (like candy and dairy products) dry out when they react with oxygen and guar gum can help prevent this. It is a very common ingredient in ice cream, where it produces the desired "mouth feel" (that pleasant, creamy feeling). Guar gum is used in soups, candies, cheeses, yogurt and sliced deli meats. It forms a gel when mixed with water, which is used as a stabilizer. It is high in fiber and often appears as an ingredient in fiber supplements. Partially hydrolyzed guar gum (PHGG) is the form used for fiber.

Even though most guar gum is imported from India, it is still economical for industrial applications because a little bit goes a long way. It can be used as a stabilizer because it prevents solid particles from settling out of a mixture and as an emulsifier (prevents oil droplets from sticking together). In the textile industry, cotton and polyester fibers are dipped into a solution of guar gum to give them a polished coating before weaving begins. In the paper industry, guar gum is used to improve sheet formation and make the surface of the sheets more receptive to ink. In the explosives industry, guar gum is use to make explosive powders waterproof. In the pharmaceutical industry it's used as a binder (to make the ingredients in pills stick together) and as a thickener in toothpaste and shampoo.

Guar gum has been helpful in relieving constipation for chronic sufferers from diseases such as colitis and Crohn's disease. It has also been found to lower blood serum cholesterol and increase the absorption of calcium. This is especially important for people on diets, since calcium-rich foods (dairy) tend to be high in fat. With the addition of guar gum, the required calcium can be extracted from a smaller amount of food. For many people, guar gum aids the passage of food through the bowels--preventing the formation of bad cholesterol and aiding in the extraction of toxins.