Cream Topping Mixes Become More ‘Natural’

As everyone knows, and some people actually say, a civilization is reflected in its least artifacts.

Take the toppings and creams just served at many holiday tables. Few products exist in such a range, from nature’s own milk products to the food lab mixtures of water, sugar, oil and a bunch of additives with names that sound like bug-killers or fertilizer components.

These, too, mirror changing consumer tastes. First there was heavy cream that could be whipped into shape. Then came creams or cream-like substances packaged for convenience in envelopes of dry mix powder and aerosol cans. Then it was synthesized in non-dairy form--for health as well as convenience. Now there’s heavy cream again, in spray can form, and next year, we’ll probably go back to whipping our own.

The revolutionary Reddi-Wip, introduced in 1948, still had cream as its first listed, and thus primary, ingredient, although it was lower in fat and therefore lighter than fresh whipping cream. It’s Reddi-Wip’s second ingredient--nonfat milk solids--that give it extra body and thus the desired “mouth feel,” making “the taste stay a little longer on the palate,” says Tony Adamany, vice president of quality assurance, science and technology for Reddi-Wip’s manufacturer, Beatrice C1751475571(sucrose) and corn syrup, a fructose product that was added to the recipe in the 1970s when sugar became quite expensive.

Reddi-Wip also includes artificial and natural flavors (mostly vanilla) and almost “microscopic” amounts of several food additives, Adamany says. Mono- and diglycerides, derived from vegetable fats, function as emulsifiers, providing a smooth texture by coating the fat particles so they stay evenly dispersed in the substance. Carrageenan, derived from marine algae, is a thickener. The propellant, or “whipping gas,” is nitrous oxide, the same gas used “by your friendly dentist,” says Adamany, and the whole can is shrink-wrapped in plastic so no one can sniff away the gas in the store.

Reddi-Wip needs few additives, says Adamany, because a dairy product is a “natural emulsion,” its butterfat and water already mixed. “A non-dairy product, which starts with pure fat and you have to add things to it, depends on additives to form and stabilize the emulsion.”

‘Natural Substances’

By the mid-1960s, there were more non-dairy products, with more non-food-like components. General Foods’ Cool Whip, for example, does have six ingredients that sound edible. First, there’s water, then corn syrup (one sugar), then oil (hydrogenated, or hardened, coconut and palm kernel oils), more sugar (table sugar this time), sodium caseinate (the protein in milk), and more sugar, this time dextrose, or corn sugar, which is fine and powdery.

The rest is food additives, none known as delicious, but all approved by the Food and Drug Administration, and all in such small amounts that, even as a group, they probably constitute less than 1% of the substance. Polysorbate 60 and sorbitan monostearate, both synthetically made, are emulsifiers, assuring the uniform dispersion of the fat. Xanthan gum (derived from corn products) and guar gum (obtained from a bean seed) are thickeners, or stabilizers, which guarantee the product won’t break apart when thawed. There are also natural and artificial flavors (vanilla and something the company calls “creamy note”), and artificial color, principally beta carotene.

The lineup certainly doesn’t present the image of a “natural” emulsion, but what is “natural”? The ingredients in products like Cool Whip or Coffee Rich may be non-dairy, and even synthetic, but they’re often identical to substances found in nature--a justification for marketing many packaged concoctions as “natural” foods. But the more common interpretation of “natural”--and probably the consumer’s--is that the very ingredients used in the particular product were produced by nature, not a lab.

Indeed, if the “natural” ingredients in a dairy product were further reduced to their component parts, the labels might sound just as chemical. With dairy products like Reddi-Wip, “they don’t have to put on the label what’s already in cream,” says Sean O’Mahony, vice president of research at Buffalo-based Rich Products Corp., which makes Coffee Rich, “although cream contains a long line of phospholipids and other things that don’t sound any better than what we’ve got in our man-made product.”

Healthy Formulations

“What is milk,” says O’Mahony, “but 87% water, with carbohydrate (lactose), fat particles, protein, emulsifiers (the phospolipids), and a bunch of salts?” Similarly, Coffee Rich is primarily water, followed by corn syrup (the carbohydrate), partially hydrogenated soybean oil (the fat), soy protein (the protein), three emulsifiers (mo1852779808lactylate, and polysorbate 60), three salts common in milk (dipotassium phosphate, disodium phosphate, and sodium acid pyrophosphate), artificial flavor and color.

Actually, although “natural” milk products may sound healthier, Coffee Rich, introduced in 1961, was formulated with health in mind. An alternative to cream or half-and-half, it’s 100% milk-free, low in sodium, and, since 1985 (when soybean oil was substituted for coconut and palm kernel oils), has contained no cholesterol or saturated fats that tend to elevate cholesterol levels in the body.

The general evolution of such products may have its own ironies. Having gone the route to high-tech, milk-free, low-fat syntheses, they’re heading backwards: This year’s introduction is Reddi-Wip Deluxe, one-third heavier than the regular stuff, and “the Haagen-Dazs of whipped creams,” in Adamany’s words. Coming up, no doubt: real cream and a better beater, if not a whole new machine.