Sea Power MAX Home » What is Agar?
Agar is a natural vegetable gelatin which is made from seaweed and it has been known as “The medicine to smoothen stomach conditions” from a long time ago. In other countries, kanten is called “Kanten“, “China Grass” or “Japanese Isinglass” (from wikipedia).
Specifically, the term “Kanten” is not exactly equal to “Agar”. The term “Agar” has a broader meaning. On the other hand, “Kanten” has a narrower meaning. Anyway, we should not go into too deep about this topic since they have a same meaning in English.
In this homepage, we treat the term both “Kanten” and “Agar” as a equal meaning and use them interchangeably.
Agar-Agar is left picture and Gracilaria is right picture below. Those seaweeds are raw materials used to make Agar.
Many people misunderstand the difference between agar and jelly you normally eat at home. The following pictures show coffee jelly of both types. The jelly on the left is made from seaweed gelatin and the jelly on the right is made from animal gelatin. Even though pictures look similar, they are quite different.
The differences are summarized in next table.
| Item | Seaweed Gelatin (Agar or Kanten) | Animal Gelatin (Jelly you normally eat) |
| Raw Material | Agar-Agar, Gracilaria | Bovine Hide Collagen |
| Principal Ingredients | Agarose, Agaropectin | Collagen |
| Calorie (per 100g) | 4kcal | 340kcal |
| Coagulation Temperature | 35-40 degree C | 15-20 degree C |
| Melting Temperature | 85-95 degree C | 20-30 degree C |
Agar has been widely eaten by Japanese in the past 350 years. The following picture was drawn in 1766 about tokoroten seaweed noodle selling (taken from Toraya Bunko).
Recently, it has been found that agar is an ideal dieting food. Firstly, agar is almost non-calorie food and therefore you do not get fat no matter how much you eat it. Second, a lot of dietary fiber which is contained in agar (ie. 75% is dietary fiber) prevents constipation. Third, after you eat it, it expands in your stomach and you feel sense of fullness. As a result, agar prevents overeating.
These effects have been officially proven by scientists recently. Aside from preventing constipation, agar dietary fiber has also the ability to prevent Atherosclerosis, Cerebrovascular accident, and Myocardial infarction. Therefore, agar is currently one of the most popular traditional foods.
