Halloween: candy for the party
There's more trick-or-treating for Halloween
"Trick or treat!" - that's the motto for Halloween, the popular spooky night that comes around every October. Parents, kids and teens in the U.S. and Europe celebrate this party with carved pumpkins, scary costumes and, most importantly, candy.
It's not the sour stuff that makes for fun trick-or-treating, but chocolate, gummy bears, marshmallows and homemade treats like Jell-O. Those who love to bake and decorate show almost unlimited creativity and wit throughout the Halloween season.
What most Halloween fans don't know is that many candy ingredients have been treated with ion exchange resins from LANXESS. That's because these ensure the purity of the candy in terms of color, taste and smell.
Lewatit® Ion exchangers make sweetness perfect
Whether the sugar for our sweets comes from the beet, corn or sugar cane, it is created in a field under the sun. Some plants can present particular traits that are not always desirable in food ingredients. These include a distinctive or bitter flavor, discoloration, certain salts, minerals and a caramel aroma.
That’s where chemistry comes in to make a sweet treat even sweeter.
"To make candy taste the way we love it, numerous ingredients must be carefully processed. Lewatit® ion exchange resins, for example, ensure that sugars taste purely sweet and are of the best quality."
What are ion exchange resins?
Ion exchange resins are cross-linked polymers that remove various substances from liquids due to functional groups that make up each resin bead. This is very useful, for example, to soften water and to purify groundwater, as well as processing biomass for pharmaceuticals. Food ingredients such as dextrose and fructose syrup, sugar syrup and gelatine are purified with ion exchange resins. Why is that? Because often times, naturally grown products may not be of a high enough quality for further processing.
Lewatit® ion exchange resins from LANXESS are small beads less than one millimeter in diameter. They consist of a polymer backbone and a so-called functional group. These functional groups, which are incorporated into the polymer network in a second production step during the manufacturing of ion exchange resins, are responsible for the exchange of ions.
Ions are negatively or positively charged atoms or molecules. During ion exchange, the ions of the ion exchange resin change places with the ions that are to be removed from the liquid environment (see infographic). What remains is the purified liquid - without the ion exchange resins. Incidentally, these can be used several times. In this way, Lewatit® ion exchange resins from LANXESS have been in use for a few years.Food companies can use the Lewatit® polymer beads repeatedly to produce pure dextrose, fructose or granulated sugar, among other things.
Ion exchange resins are very versatile
To ensure that food ingredients meet the highest standards, ion exchange resins from LANXESS provide the following:
- he powerful beads remove unwanted colorants, odors and flavors from the raw sugar solution via an adsorption process. This process makes it possible to produce top-quality sugar and increase the yield from the raw mass.
- Ion exchange removes ions from the raw sugar solution, for example in the form of Na+ and Cl- (common salt).
- Ion exchangers also play a role in splitting the beet or cane sugar into glucose and fructose. The splitting is a catalytic process in which H+ ions (positively charged hydrogen ions) play a decisive role. It is the ion exchangers that provide the H+ ions.
Those who eat Halloween gumdrops or monsters enjoy ingredients such as glucose, granulated sugar and fructose, as well as gelatin and citric acid. Sugar-free varieties are sweetened with maltitol syrup. Vegetarian fruit gums do without gelatin and contain starch instead. These ingredients are purified with ion exchange resins. The effect is that manufacturers obtain a more pure ingredient. That is free from salts, color, taste and inherent odor. We at home also appreciate a baking assortment with different sweeteners such as brown or white sugar. This way we can implement many of our own creations.
"For Halloween and other sweet holidays, there are sugar-free and vegetarian alternatives - these are also enhanced with the use of ion exchange resins from LANXESS."
Chocolate and cocoa: indulgence without bitterness
Cocoa beans can be naturally very bitter and without sweetness, this gift of nature would not be much of a treat. Credit ion exchange resins for adding in a consistent sweetness and improved quality to cocoa. From whole milk to dark to hot chocolate, how much sweetness tastes best is a personal preference.
"Sweetness refines the distinctive note of cocoa, which is hardly enjoyable pure. Purified sugar with consistent properties ensures that manufacturers can trust their recipes and don't have to keep adjusting them."
Variety for Halloween - very welcome
We cannot survive without carbohydrates and proteins, which give us energy for our bodies and minds. In exceptional times like Halloween, these nutrients can sometimes consist of "trick or treat." Don't forget: Get enough exercise after or before feasting! The longer we walk to ring doorbells, the more fruit jellies we can have.
For those who like it less sweet, there are alternatives, like protein bars. Again, it's all about specific ingredients, which go through a purification process before being used as an ingredient in the power snack. This includes ingredients such as vitamins, proteins and amino acids, sweeteners such as isomaltooligosaccharides, sucralose or maltitol and emulsifiers such as soy lecithin.
Halloween has long been an international celebration - LANXESS delivers
Halloween is a happy celebration not only in the U.S., but in many countries, defying the darkness of autumn. As a leading supplier of ion exchange resins, LANXESS supplies international manufacturers of food and beverage ingredients powering trick-or-treaters around the globe. The Lewatit® beads form an indispensable component in their added value.
So you can enjoy celebrations as they fall - with just the right delicacy.
