154 Maine: agricui,turai, e;xpe;riment station. 1909. 



Commi;rcial Thicke:ners e'or Ic^ Cr^m. 



Ice cream manufacturers usually use more or less of starch, 

 gelatine, gum tragacanth, egg or other similar material in the 

 manufacture of ice cream even when they use a heav^ cream 

 that would make a perfect product for immediate use. It is 

 claimed that if ice cream has to be kept several hours that the 

 presence of these materials assist in its retaining its shape and 

 increases the smoothness of the product. Their use in moder- 

 ate quantites is permitted in Maine without statement of fact.* 

 There are upon the market preparations specially made as 

 thickeners for ice cream. These are sold at rather high prices 

 and it was deemed important to know something of their con- 

 tent. A few of the more common ones that came to our atten- 

 tion were examined as reported below. They are arranged 

 alphabetically by the names under which they are sold. 



The results of the analyses show that these materials contain 

 no injurious materials. They consist for the most part of 

 starchy materials or gelatin with very liberal amounts of sugar. 

 They are evidently prepared chiefly because of the high price 

 at which comparatively inexpensive materials can be sold. The 

 intelligent maker of ice cream will buy starch, gelatine or what- 

 ever he prefers to use in his cream direct at what the goods are 

 really worth in the market. There will always however be 

 some people who will be induced to purchase these prepared 

 materials because of the special claims made for them without 

 much consideration of what they are or at what price they are 

 sold. 



Creamoline (No. 7694). This was received by Geo. W. 

 Austin and Company of Bar Harbor from H. A. Johnson and 

 Company of Boston in a box labeled corn starch and nothing 

 upon it to indicate that it was Creamoline. The Maine firm 

 claim that they purchased Creamoline. On examination by 

 chemical tests no starch was found. Under the microscope a 

 few corn starch grains were found. These probably came from 

 the starch originally packed in the box. No preservatives were 

 found. It carried .32 per cent nitrogen and contained a mate- 

 rial resembling slipery elm, which may have been gum 

 tragacanth. The goods were sold at 35 cents a pound. 



* See Official Inspections 8, pages 12 and 13. 



