Pectin is white to light brown in color and extracted from the peel of citrus fruits. Because major part of it is extracted from the fruits so it is also called fruit pectin. Pectin is used as a food additive mainly in the form of gelling agent. Besides this, pectin is used as stabilizer in fruit juices and milk drinks. Liquid pectin or powdered pectin is used to make jams at home. Pectin is also used as pectin jelly to make jelly.
FAO/WHO joint Expert Committee on Food Additives and in the EU has not set any acceptable daily intake (ADI) for pectin so it is considered as a safe food additive.
Fruit pectin is the most popular as most of the fruits are the source of pectin. Apple has 1-1.5 % of pectin, apricot has 1%, cherries has 0.4%, oranges has 0.5-3.5% pectin whereas citrus peels has 30% pectin.
Major part of fruit pectin is obtained from the peel of citrus fruit and apple. To extract pectin from these sources hot dilute acid having pH 1.5 – 3.5 is added to them. While extracting pectin some of the chain length and branches of propectin are lost and went into solution which are then removed with the process of filtration. This is followed by the concentration of the extract in vacuum and precipitation of pectin with the help of ethanol or isopropanol.
The precipitated pectin is then separated from alcohol, washed and dried properly.
Pectin is a food additive that is used as emulsifier, stabiliser and thickening agent. Besides this it has the following uses.
Normally pectin is hard to digest but the modified pectin or modified citrus pectin (MCP) is much easily absorbed by our digestive tract. To make modified pectin the long chains are broken into smaller pieces which is then absorbed in the blood stream.