Have you ever stopped to read the ingredient list on a package of cream cheese? We did, and we found some unexpected additives. Read on to see us explain these ingredients and why manufacturers use them.
Grocery Store Dairy Cream Cheese
Let’s start by looking at the cream cheese spreads offered by some popular brands you have probably seen on grocery store shelves:
The ingredients we have bolded above (with the exception of natamycin, which is a preservative made via bacterial fermentation) act as stabilizers in the above cream cheese spreads. Here’s some information about them:
Guar gum
From the seeds of the guar plant
Used for its thickening, emulsifying, and stabilizing properties
Cold water soluble
Carob bean/locust bean gum:
From the seeds of the carob tree
Often used to impart a creamy texture (also a thickener and stabilizer)
Water soluble only at high temperatures
Xanthan gum:
From fermenting a carbohydrate with the bacteria Xanthomonas campestris
Used for its thickening, emulsifying, and stabilizing properties
Cold water soluble
Stable at a wide range of temperatures
Cheese — including soft cheeses like cream cheese — is made by curdling milk with some form of acid that produces curds (the coagulated milk solids) and whey (the liquid that separates from the curds). Most of the whey is strained out, but a small amount will naturally separate as the cream cheese sits. Manufacturers use stabilizers (primarily guar gum, carob bean gum, xanthan gum, or a combination of the three) to limit this separation and to control the texture of the cream cheese, making it more spreadable or more solid depending upon the product (Brighenti et. al, 2020).
Grocery Store Plant-based Cream Cheese
Texture is even more important with non-dairy products, so we were curious what ingredients we would find in a non-dairy cream cheese. We looked at a non-dairy cream cheese spread offered by Brand 1 in the previous section and found four ingredients that likely help with texture:
Modified potato starch:
Starch whose chemical structure has been altered using enzymes or chemicals
Used for its thickening, gelling, and stabilizing properties
Faba bean protein:
A protein extracted from the faba bean, sometimes spelled “fava bean”
Used as a plant-based protein source and for its emulsifying properties
Maltodextrin:
Extracted from starchy foods such as corn, potato, or wheat
Can be used as a fat replacer, thickener, or filler
Guar gum: (see above)
There were also a number of ingredients that act as preservatives and help improve the flavor of the product, such as lactic acid, sorbic acid, natural flavor, and citric acid.
Bagel Shop Cream Cheese (Schmears)
Okay, so we’ve seen that large brands rely upon gums as stabilizers and texturizers. But what about cream cheese spreads you might find at a bagel shop?
We decided to take a look at the ingredient list of the Pickle De Gallo Schmear at a trendy, New York City bagel shop and found gums there, as well.
So what?
Research suggests that a number of these ingredients alter the gut microbiome and contribute to inflammation and stomach upset (Nair et al., 2021), which brings up questions regarding whether there should be such widespread use of these gums in the food system. Here at Uncracked, we’re developing a seaweed-based functional ingredient to provide manufacturers with an alternative to the gums currently on the market without compromising on key product attributes like texture and stability.
We made our own cream cheese in our test kitchen using our proprietary seaweed-based ingredient and found that it provided similar thickening and stabilizing properties as other additives while also enhancing the flavor. Here’s a sneak peek of the result!
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