You say understated, we say Lecithin.
Lecithin’srole as a health ingredient is probably as crucial as that of the vitamins. Yet a regular person’s awareness of lecithin is nowhere close to the undisputed popularity of vitamins. The omnipresence of lecithin in our everyday life is quite understated.
Fact is,you are surrounded by Lecithin in some way or the other all the time. As a start, what if we tell you that Lecithin is found in every cell of your body?
Interestingly, a mighty thirty per cent of your brain’s dry weight and even mightier three quarters of your liver’s fat is constituted of lecithin.
Yes, Lecithin is natural building block of your body’s cell membranes.It plays a key role in multiple body functions including metabolism, cholesterol management and the nervous system. We shall explore how in our later blog series.
If that does not suffice to show how lecithin touches your everyday life, here’s some more interesting trivia. But first, we need to ask an important question:
Melody itni chocolaty kyun hoti hai?
You guessed it right, because Lecithin. Among other things, Melody contains Lecithin which not only helps increase the shelf-life of the toffee, but also controls sugar crystallisation and the fluidity of the chocolate. Thus, lecithin helps in making Melody denser which in turn gives us the idea of a 'chocolaty' core i.e. when you bite into the toffee, you feel it is a fuller bite and thick in texture.Pranav Joshi explains it in depth in his entertaining tweet thread.
Likewise, many of your everyday packaged food products such as chocolates,biscuits, cakes and ice-creams contain lecithin as an important ingredient. There’s more such line of products, but we will keep it for later.
So finally coming to it, what is lecithin?
Lecithin is a yellowish-brown emulsifying substance found in the tissues of all living organisms. It was discovered in 1850sby French scientist Maurice Gobleywho named it as “lekithos" after the Greek word for 'egg yolk' which is a rich source of lecithin.
A snap of fluid lecithin, obtained after processing crude lecithin for impurities and consistency
Today lecithin is the generic name given to a whole class of fat-and-water soluble compounds called phospholipids. Phospholipids are important biochemical intermediates in the growth and functioning of cells in plants and animals. Without these, our cell membraneswill harden and become brittle.
Lecithin is found in multiple sources but Soybeans and Sunflower are its most popular sources. It has wide applications across food, cosmetics, pharmaceutical and healthcare sectors.
Here, we take your leave. Wish you a week of good health ahead!
~ Lecilite Ingredients
We shall go through the diverse aspects of lecithin in our weekly blog series. Stay tuned with us atLecilite Ingredientsand check our website lecilite.comto immerse into the fascinating world of Lecithin.