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Food Additives & Ingredients · Gums & Thickeners
Gellan Gum: What It Is, Is It Bad for You & Side Effects
What gellan gum is, how it's made, what happens when you eat it, what the human studies show, and how to read the labels it turns up on, guided by the five-ingredient rule from The Biblio Diet.
Evidence-based30 sources citedUpdated October 6, 2026
The Dr. Axe Score™
Scientific Evidence
4.1/10
Three small human studies of gellan gum itself and a full set of animal safety studies.
Antioxidant & Anti-Inflammatory
1.0/10
A purified gum with no protective plant compounds and no human inflammation data.
Clinical Effectiveness
2.4/10
A texture tool for manufacturers; one single-meal study found a smaller blood-sugar rise after rice cooked with it.
Nutrient Density
0.5/10
No vitamins or minerals at food amounts, and no USDA nutrient record.
Why this score?
Why Gellan Gum scores 2.2 / 10
Weighting: Evidence 30% · Antioxidant & Anti-Inflammatory 25% · Clinical Effectiveness 25% · Nutrient Density 20% (4.1×0.30 + 1.0×0.25 + 2.4×0.25 + 0.5×0.20 = 2.18, shown as 2.2).
A transparent, weighted index built for foods. See how it’s calculated →
Gellan gum at a glance
Gellan gum is a gelling agent that a bacterium makes by fermenting sugar, used in tiny amounts to set gels and to keep drinks such as plant milk and cream from separating.12
- Where it stands: a "limit" ingredient. It counts toward the five-ingredient guideline in The Biblio Diet, and it usually signals a processed food.3
- Safety: in the small amounts used in food, it hasn't shown harm in testing; very large amounts may have a laxative effect.24
- Nutrition: almost none. USDA keeps no nutrient record for it, and it doesn't count as dietary fiber on a U.S. label.56
- In people: cooked into white rice, it made the rise in blood sugar over the next 2 hours about 42% smaller in a randomized single-meal study of 12 adults, each of whom ate both meals.7
- Better choices: canned coconut milk or an unsweetened nut or seed milk with minimal additives,8 an organic, grass-fed A2 cream whose label lists only cream,263 and chia, flax or eggs to thicken and bind at home.
Gellan gum is a fine white powder that a bacterium makes as it ferments sugar, and a very little of it goes a long way. At just 0.03% of a drink's weight, it keeps cocoa evenly suspended through a carton of chocolate milk, and with its side groups stripped away it sets liquids into firm, clear gels.29
You'll find it on the labels of plant milks, coffee creamers, heavy cream, protein shakes and desserts.5 Gellan gum is one of the ingredients that let a manufactured drink or dessert stay smooth on a shelf, so seeing it usually tells you you're holding a processed product. It counts as an ingredient, too, and every ingredient counts under the guideline I give for packaged foods in The Biblio Diet, the book I wrote with Jordan Rubin.3
A good guideline is to buy food with at most five ingredients.Dr. Josh Axe, DC, DNM, CNSFrom The Biblio Diet (2025), ebook p. 43
What is gellan gum?
Quick answer
Gellan gum is a carbohydrate that a bacterium makes as it ferments sugar, sold as a powder that thickens liquids and sets them into gels. You'll see it listed as gellan gum, or as E 418 in Europe, and food makers typically use it at 0.1% to 1% of a food's weight.21
Manufacturers grow a single strain of the bacterium, named Pseudomonas elodea in the U.S. regulation, on sugar, nitrogen sources and minerals. They recover the gum from the broth with alcohol, then dry and mill it.12 Its chain repeats a simple pattern of four sugars, two glucose, one rhamnose and one glucuronic acid, and U.S. rules require the finished powder to be free of live bacteria.1
That chain is what makes it useful. Dissolved in hot liquid, it sets into a gel as it cools, and the gel holds up to 90°C (194°F) and across a wide range of acidity, from about pH 3.5 to 8.2 In a drink, a smaller amount keeps particles such as cocoa or seeds from sinking,2 which is why it shows up in plant-based milks and protein shakes.5 Because it's made by bacteria, it sets vegan desserts and gummies without any animal ingredients.1
Does gellan gum have any nutrition?
Almost none at the amounts in food. USDA's FoodData Central keeps no nutrient record for gellan gum itself,5 and gellan isn't on FDA's list of isolated fibers that can be counted as dietary fiber on a Nutrition Facts label.6 It's unlikely to be absorbed intact, so it travels through your gut largely as it went in; the diagram below walks through the steps.2
A short history of gellan gum
Researchers at the company that went on to produce gellan gum first described it in 1982, as a gel made by a newly isolated bacterium. Without its side groups, the gel set firm and clear and survived several rounds of autoclaving at 121°C (250°F), and the researchers proposed it as an alternative to agar for growing microbes in the lab.9 The FDA listed it as a food additive in 1990,1 the same year the World Health Organization's expert committee on food additives evaluated it.4 European regulators gave it the number E 418 and reviewed it again in 2018.2
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Open the free protocol → →High-acyl vs. low-acyl gellan gum
Gellan gum comes in two main forms, and the difference is a set of small side groups along the chain, called acetyl and glyceryl groups. Leaving them on or stripping them off changes how the gel behaves.2
| High-acyl gellan gum | Low-acyl gellan gum | |
|---|---|---|
How it's made | Recovered straight from the fermentation broth, keeping most of its side groups2 | The broth is treated with alkali first, which strips the side groups off2 |
Gel texture | Soft and elastic2 | |
In stomach-like acid (lab tests) | Less sensitive to acid10 | Acid-sensitive: its gels firm up10 |
U.S. organic rules | Allowed in organic foods as a nonsynthetic ingredient11 | Allowed in organic foods as a synthetic ingredient since 20221112 |
Example use | About 0.03% in chocolate milk2 | About 0.02% to suspend seeds in a drink2 |
Neither form adds nutrition, and the score on this page covers both.
Is gellan gum bad for you?
Quick answer
In the small amounts used in food, gellan gum hasn't shown harm, but it's a "limit" ingredient. U.S. and European regulators allow it, the World Health Organization's expert committee set no numerical daily limit, and it isn't on The Biblio Diet's list of additives to avoid. It still counts toward the five-ingredient guideline, and it usually signals a processed product.1423
Here's what the safety reviews found, and who submitted the studies behind them. Gellan gum has been reviewed by U.S., international and European regulators. U.S. rules allow it as a stabilizer and thickener in the amount needed to do that job.1 The WHO's expert committee set no numerical acceptable daily intake for it, listing it as "not specified."4 When European reviewers looked again in 2018, they agreed there was no need for a numerical daily limit, found no concern for cancer or genetic damage, and found no safety concern at the amounts people eat.2 In gellan gum's own long-term feeding studies, mice fed up to 3% of their diet as gellan for 96 to 98 weeks, and rats fed up to 5% for about two years starting in the womb, showed no tumors or other tissue changes caused by the gum.13 All 14 studies the WHO committee listed in its review, including the first human tolerance study, were submitted to it by the gum's maker.13
My list of additives to avoid in The Biblio Diet tells you not to buy packaged foods with preservatives such as sodium nitrite and BHT, emulsifiers such as carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) and polysorbate 80 (P80), phosphate additives, potassium bromate, flavor enhancers such as MSG, or artificial flavors.3 Gellan gum isn't on that list.
Gums do come up in the book, though. Writing about plant-based milks, I put it this way: "Many are filled with sugar, thickeners, and gums, some of which cause cancer in lab rats."3 The simplest way to eat fewer of them, gellan gum included, is to choose more foods with short labels. Real food rarely needs a stabilizer to hold it together, so every whole food you put in the cart is one less label to decode.
What happens when you eat gellan gum?
Here's the path from the fermentation tank to your gut, step by step, with the lab and animal findings labeled.
1Bacteria make it.
One bacterial strain ferments sugar and releases the gum, which is recovered from the broth with alcohol. Treating the broth with alkali first gives low-acyl gellan.21
2A small amount sets a gel.
At 0.1% to 1% of a food's weight, high-acyl gellan makes soft, elastic gels and low-acyl gellan makes firm, brittle ones.2
3Stomach acid firms it (lab tests and MRI).
In lab tests, an acid bath like the stomach's made gellan gels stronger.10 In a single-meal study of 12 adults, rice cooked with gellan stayed in clumps in the stomach on MRI scans.7
4It isn't absorbed (rat studies).
Rats given gellan with a radioactive tag passed 86% to 100% of it in their feces within a week, depending on which tag was measured, and European reviewers concluded it's unlikely to be absorbed intact.132
Does gellan gum have any health benefits?
Two effects have been measured in people. Cooked into white rice, gellan gum lowered the rise in blood sugar after the meal in a randomized single-meal study of 12 adults, and eaten daily in large amounts, it made stools bulkier in a 10-person tolerance study with no comparison group. Lab studies add a mixed picture on gut bacteria, and one mouse study looked at liver fat.
Where the research stands
Three studies have measured what eating gellan gum does in healthy people. Two tolerance studies from Edinburgh, with 10 and 20 healthy adults, ran for about 3 weeks each and had no comparison group, and one randomized single-meal study of 12 healthy adults tested it cooked into rice. Most of the rest is regulatory animal testing and lab work.141772
1
A smaller blood-sugar rise after rice
Emerging evidenceHuman studyRandomized single-meal study · 12 healthy adults, each ate both mealsIn a randomized study at the University of Nottingham, 12 healthy adults each ate two meals of jasmine rice about a week apart: one cooked with low-acyl gellan gum at 3% of the dry rice's weight and one cooked without it. That's far more gum than the fraction of a percent in a carton of plant milk. Over the next 2 hours, the rise in blood sugar was about 42% smaller with gellan (93 vs. 160 mmol/L·min), and the peak at 30 minutes was lower, about 117 vs. 132 mg/dL (6.5 vs. 7.3 mmol/L). MRI scans showed the gellan rice staying in clumps in the stomach. Appetite and the lunch people ate afterward showed no significant difference (631 vs. 629 calories).7
In earlier lab tests of white rice cooked with up to 1% low-acyl gellan, the rice's estimated glycemic index fell from 94 to 78, the gum formed a gel layer a few micrometers thick on each grain, and a lump of the rice stayed intact for an hour in simulated stomach acid, against 30 minutes for plain rice.18
Rice cooked with gellan: blood-sugar rise 93 vs. 160
2
Bulkier stools
Emerging evidenceHuman studyTolerance study · 10 healthy adults, 23 days, no comparison groupIn a 1988 Edinburgh study, 5 women and 5 men ate gellan gum every day for 23 days: 175 mg per kilogram of body weight for a week, then 200 mg for 16 days, about 14 grams a day for a 154-pound adult. Each person was compared with their own control week beforehand. Stools got bulkier in all 5 men and 4 of the 5 women, and the bile acids they passed in their stool rose in 8 of the 10, by about a fifth on average. Transit time lengthened in 4 people and shortened in 6. Total cholesterol fell 12% to 13% on average, a borderline result statistically, while HDL cholesterol, triglycerides, blood sugar and insulin showed no significant change.14 Rats fed gellan in their diet also moved food through faster and passed heavier stools.1920
3
Gut bacteria and short-chain fatty acids
Mixed evidenceIn vitro (lab)Lab studies with human gut bacteria · breath tests in 10 adultsShort-chain fatty acids are compounds your gut bacteria make when they ferment fiber. In a 1990 lab test with fresh human gut bacteria, gellan gum produced about twice the short-chain fatty acids of the controls (37.2 vs. 15.5 mmol/L).152 A 2026 lab study using gut bacteria from 10 donors found that gellan barely fermented.16 In the 1988 tolerance study of 10 volunteers with no comparison group, breath hydrogen, a sign of fermentation in the gut, showed no significant change,14 and European reviewers concluded that gellan "would not be fermented by human intestinal microbiota."2
4
Less liver fat in mice
Preclinical evidenceAnimal studyMouse study · high-fat dietMice on a high-fat diet that included gellan gum gained less weight and body fat and stored less fat in their livers than mice on the high-fat diet alone, and their gut bacteria shifted toward making more short-chain fatty acids. In the same paper's lab tests, gellan helped two probiotic strains grow.21
How does gellan gum affect your gut?
Quick answer
No human study has shown gellan gum harming the gut, though it hasn't been tested the way the emulsifiers CMC and polysorbate 80 were. Both are on The Biblio Diet's list. Each led to gut inflammation in a mouse study, CMC also changed gut bacteria in a randomized feeding study of 16 healthy adults, and gellan gum wasn't part of those studies.222324
In a mouse study, mice given relatively low concentrations of CMC or P80 developed low-grade gut inflammation and signs of metabolic syndrome, and mice prone to colitis developed it.22 In people, a randomized controlled-feeding study of 16 healthy adults, in which neither the people nor the researchers knew who got what, compared 7 who ate 15 grams a day of CMC for 11 days with 9 who ate the same diet without emulsifiers. CMC modestly increased abdominal discomfort after meals, reduced the variety of gut bacteria and, in 2 of the 7 people eating it, let bacteria push into the inner mucus layer that normally keeps them away from the gut wall.23 When researchers exposed human gut bacteria to 20 common emulsifiers and thickeners in a lab model, several carrageenans and gums also had strong harmful effects on the bacteria. Gellan gum wasn't among the 20 tested.24
The closest look at gellan and the gut lining comes from rats. Rats fed gellan for four weeks had the tips of their microvilli, the microscopic projections on the cells lining the gut, stuck together and coated with gut contents in the small intestine and cecum, while the lining of the colon looked the same as in the cellulose-fed rats.25 What that means for people hasn't been studied.
If you're working on leaky gut or another gut problem, cutting back on packaged foods built on emulsifiers and other additives is a simple place to start, and it will lower your gellan gum intake along the way.
What foods contain gellan gum, and how do you choose?
Quick answer
Gellan gum shows up in plant milks, coffee creamers, heavy cream, protein shakes and desserts.5 The best choice is the shortest label: canned coconut milk or a nut or seed milk that's unsweetened with minimal additives,8 an organic, grass-fed A2 cream whose label lists only cream,263 and whole foods to thicken and bind at home.
As of October 4, 2026, 3,290 packaged foods in USDA's branded food database list gellan gum as an ingredient.5
3,290 packaged foods list gellan gum
Plant milks. If you drink a plant milk, the short label is your best guide. When I ranked dairy alternatives on my show, coconut milk came first, then raw organic A2 dairy, then nut milks such as almond, ahead of rice, oat and soy milk, and my advice for a nut or seed milk was to choose one that's unsweetened and has minimal additives.8 The Biblio Diet food lists put canned coconut milk and cream, plain almond milk and plain macadamia nut milk on the eat side, and oat, soy, rice and cashew milk on the avoid side.3 Homemade almond milk needs only almonds and water. Without a stabilizer it settles in the fridge, so shake it before you pour.
Heavy cream. Cream shows how much labels vary within one food. Three heavy creams in USDA's branded database:
| Heavy cream label | Ingredients | How it fits |
|---|---|---|
Heavy cream | Cream (milk)26 | One ingredient, the shortest label |
Grade A heavy cream | Cream, gellan gum27 | Two ingredients, and gellan gum counts as one |
Heavy cream | Cream, carrageenan, mono and diglycerides and polysorbate 8028 | Four ingredients, and polysorbate 80 is on The Biblio Diet's list of additives to avoid |
Heavy cream labels: 1, 2 or 4 ingredients
If cream is part of your kitchen, the short label is only the first step. The Biblio Diet food lists favor full-fat dairy that's organic and grass-fed, put A2, goat and sheep dairy ahead of regular cow's dairy, and list canned coconut cream on the eat side. So reach for an organic, grass-fed A2 cream whose label lists only cream, or canned coconut cream with the shortest label you can find.3
Thickening and binding at home. You don't need a powdered gum to give a dish body. These whole foods do the job:
Chia seeds: soaked in milk or juice, they swell into a soft gel, the base of chia seed pudding
Ground flaxseed: stirred into water, it turns thick and works as a binder in baking
Eggs: they set custards and bind baked goods
Sweet potato: mashed, it adds body to soups, puddings and baked goods
Banana: mashed, it binds pancakes and muffins and thickens smoothies
Not sure about a label in your cart?
Ask Dr. Axe AI about gellan gum, any packaged food, or a swap for your favorite recipe, and get a clear answer. Answers are grounded in this library, with sources shown.
What are the side effects of gellan gum, and who should be careful?
Quick answer
At the amounts in food, gellan gum hasn't caused side effects in testing; very large amounts may have a laxative effect. Toddlers get the most per pound of body weight, and firm jelly candies in mini cups, made with gelling agents including gellan, are a choking hazard.4229
The WHO's expert committee noted that "the potential laxative effect at high intakes should be taken into account."4 For the most exposed group, toddlers, European reviewers estimated that high consumers of products containing it get up to 72.4 mg per kilogram of body weight a day; for adults, the figure was up to 17.1. Both figures come from the reviewers' "brand-loyal" scenario, which assumes a person keeps eating the product with the highest reported gellan level in one food group. Adults in the two Edinburgh tolerance studies, with 10 and 20 people and no comparison group, ate up to 200 mg per kilogram a day for about 3 weeks with no adverse effects.2
| Who | Gellan gum, mg per kg of body weight a day | What happened |
|---|---|---|
Adults, high consumers (estimate) | Up to 17.12 | Everyday food intake |
Toddlers, high consumers (estimate) | Up to 72.42 | Everyday food intake |
Healthy adults, Edinburgh tolerance studies | Up to 200, for about 3 weeks2 | No adverse effects; bulkier stools14 |
Rats, about two years, starting in the womb | Up to 1,460 (5% of the diet)2 | No adverse effects |
Mice, 96 to 98 weeks | Up to 3,627 (3% of the diet)2 | No adverse effects |
In the first of those studies, in 1988, two men showed signs of raised eosinophils, a type of white blood cell involved in allergic reactions. When the same team repeated the tolerance study in 20 healthy adults for 21 days, including those two men, nobody's eosinophils rose.17 Reviewers found no sign of allergic reactions to gellan in people or animals, and a blood test of 10 volunteers found no allergy antibodies (IgE) specific to it.2
Good to know before you buy
Jelly mini cups: firm jelly candies in mini cups, meant to be squeezed into the mouth whole, are a choking hazard. European authorities flagged gel-forming additives, gellan among them, in these candies in 2004, so skip them292
IBS or a sensitive gut: gellan gum hasn't been studied in people with IBS; if your gut is sensitive, favor short labels and notice how you do with gum-thickened drinks
Celiac disease: gellan gum contains no gluten itself, but check the whole product for a gluten-free label
The bottom line
Should you avoid gellan gum?
Limit it. Gellan gum adds no nutrition, it usually marks a processed product, and under my guideline of buying food with at most five ingredients, it counts as one of the five. In the small amounts on a food label, it hasn't shown harm.
The best moves are simple: choose canned coconut milk or an unsweetened nut or seed milk with minimal additives, buy an organic, grass-fed A2 cream whose label lists only cream, and thicken and bind at home with chia, flax, eggs or beef or fish gelatin. Your body was designed to heal, and every short label you choose gives it more of the real food it needs.
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Open the free protocol → →Gellan gum: frequently asked questions
What is gellan gum made of?
Is gellan gum bad for you?
In the small amounts used in food, gellan gum hasn't shown harm: U.S. and European regulators allow it, and long-term mouse and rat feeding studies found no tumors or other damage from it. It's still a "limit" ingredient, because it counts toward the five-ingredient guideline in The Biblio Diet and usually marks a processed product.2133
How much gellan gum is safe per day?
There's no official daily limit, because international and European reviewers found no need for a numerical one. Adults in two small tolerance studies, with 10 and 20 people and no comparison group, ate up to 200 mg per kilogram of body weight a day, about 14 grams for a 154-pound adult, for about 3 weeks without adverse effects, far more than food supplies.42
What are the side effects of gellan gum?
Is gellan gum inflammatory?
No study has linked gellan gum to inflammation in people, though none has measured it either. Among the additives tied to gut inflammation in research are the emulsifiers CMC and polysorbate 80: both caused it in a mouse study, and CMC also changed gut bacteria in a randomized feeding study of 16 healthy adults. Gellan gum wasn't part of those studies.222324
Is gellan gum bad for your gut?
No human study has shown it harming the gut: in a 23-day tolerance study of 10 healthy adults with no comparison group, it made stools bulkier with no significant change in blood sugar, insulin or breath hydrogen. Rats fed it for four weeks had changes on the surface of cells lining the small intestine, so if your gut is sensitive, favor short labels.1425
Is gellan gum a prebiotic fiber?
Some lab tests show it can feed gut bacteria, but it hasn't been shown to work as a prebiotic in people. In a 1990 lab test, human gut bacteria made about twice the short-chain fatty acids from gellan as from controls, and in a 2023 lab test it helped two probiotic strains grow. A 2026 lab test with 10 donors' gut bacteria found it barely fermented, breath hydrogen didn't change in a 10-person tolerance study with no comparison group, and it doesn't count as dietary fiber on a U.S. Nutrition Facts label.152116146
What's the difference between high-acyl and low-acyl gellan gum?
Is gellan gum vegan?
Yes. It's made by bacterial fermentation, and its U.S. definition includes no animal ingredients, so it works in vegan and vegetarian gels and desserts.1
Is gellan gum the same as gelatin?
Is gellan gum gluten-free?
Gellan gum contains no gluten itself, since it's made by fermenting sugar rather than from wheat, barley or rye. If you have celiac disease, check the whole product for a gluten-free label.1
Is gellan gum halal or kosher?
It can be either, because it's made by fermentation, but certification applies to each product, so look for a halal or kosher mark on the label.
Is gellan gum banned in Europe?
No. The European Union authorizes it as E 418 in 71 food categories, and European reviewers found no safety concern at the amounts people eat when they re-evaluated it in 2018.2
Gellan gum vs. xanthan gum: what's the difference?
Both are made by bacterial fermentation, by different bacteria, and they do different jobs: gellan gum sets liquids into gels, while xanthan gum mainly thickens them. European reviewers set no numerical daily limit for either one.230
Why is gellan gum in plant milk and heavy cream?
Does gellan gum lower blood sugar?
In one study, yes: in a randomized single-meal study of 12 healthy adults, white rice cooked with low-acyl gellan gum at 3% of the dry rice's weight produced a 42% smaller rise in blood sugar over 2 hours than the same rice without it.7
Freshness & update log
October 6, 2026 — Matched Dr. Axe's quotes to his own words, with their sources.
What changed in this update (October 4, 2026) — Rewrote the page under Dr. Josh Axe's byline around the five-ingredient guideline in The Biblio Diet; added the Dr. Axe Score with its calculation (Evidence 30% · Antioxidant & Anti-Inflammatory 25% · Clinical Effectiveness 25% · Nutrient Density 20%); added the three human studies of gellan gum with their numbers, a high-acyl vs. low-acyl table, a step-by-step diagram of what happens to gellan gum in the body, charts of the rice study and of heavy cream ingredient counts, the European and WHO safety reviews, and heavy cream label examples from USDA's database; described the 1988 Edinburgh study as the 10-person tolerance study it was; corrected the U.S. approval year to 1990 (the regulation was amended in 1992); replaced the unsourced 120°C heat-stability figure with the sourced 90°C limit for gellan gels in food; removed the unsourced lily-pad origin story, the agar conversion and brand names; and replaced the recipes that added gellan gum to homemade kefir, yogurt and nut milks with whole-food ways to thicken and bind.
October 5, 2026 (second update) — Matched the plant-milk and cream advice to Dr. Axe's own record: his show's ranking of dairy alternatives (coconut milk first, then raw organic A2 dairy, then nut milks) and The Biblio Diet food lists (canned coconut milk and cream, plain almond and macadamia milk on the eat side; oat, soy, rice and cashew milk on the avoid side; organic, grass-fed, A2 dairy favored). Clarified the European exposure note (the toddler and adult figures come from the reviewers' brand-loyal scenario), stated that all 14 studies in the WHO committee's review were submitted by the gum's maker, gave the rat excretion figure (86% to 100%), described the 1988 cholesterol drop as a borderline result, and stated the design of the CMC and polysorbate 80 studies wherever they appear. Added a table comparing everyday intake with the amounts tested in people and animals, and a free bloodwork link in the closing guide offer that names the markers it reads (hs-CRP, fasting glucose, HbA1c). Stated the design and size of both human studies where the benefits section and the gut cascade first mention them (a randomized single-meal study of 12 adults; a 10-person tolerance study with no comparison group).
References
- US Food and Drug Administration. Gellan gum. 21 CFR 172.665 (55 FR 39614, Sept. 28, 1990, as amended). Electronic Code of Federal Regulations, accessed 2026-10-04.
- EFSA Panel on Food Additives and Nutrient Sources added to Food (ANS), Younes M, Aggett P, Aguilar F, Crebelli R, Filipic M, et al. Re-evaluation of gellan gum (E 418) as food additive. EFSA J. 2018;16(6):e05296. doi:10.2903/j.efsa.2018.5296. PMID:32625935
- Axe J, Rubin J. The Biblio Diet. Hachette Book Group; 2025. ISBN 9781546008439. Chapter "The Sinister Six," section "Read Labels: Additives to Avoid" (additive list; five-ingredient guideline, ebook p. 43); milk-and-honey chapter (plant-based milk passage, ebook p. 68; full-fat dairy); food lists ("Dairy/Milk").
- Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA). Gellan gum (INS 418): summary of evaluations. Evaluation 1990; ADI "not specified." Accessed 2026-10-04.
- US Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central search for "gellan" (Foundation, SR Legacy and Survey (FNDDS): 0 records; Branded: 3,290 records listing it as an ingredient). Searched 2026-10-04.
- US Food and Drug Administration. Questions and Answers on Dietary Fiber. Accessed 2026-10-04.
- Alshammari NA, Riches K, Muttakin S, Hoad CL, Strkalj L, Gouseti O, et al. Structuring white rice with gellan gum reduces the glycemic response in healthy humans. Food Res Int. 2024;196:115090. doi:10.1016/j.foodres.2024.115090. PMID:39614504
- Axe J. Natural Sunscreens, EMF Exposure, & the Best Dairy Alternatives | Q&A. The Dr. Josh Axe Show. 2024. Dairy alternatives ranked at 37:25-40:06; "unsweetened and has minimal additives" at 38:22-38:45. Episode page: draxe.com/show/natural-sunscreens-emf-exposure-the-best-dairy-alternatives-q-a-81ce6b53/
- Kang KS, Veeder GT, Mirrasoul PJ, Kaneko T, Cottrell IW. Agar-like polysaccharide produced by a Pseudomonas species: production and basic properties. Appl Environ Microbiol. 1982;43(5):1086-91. doi:10.1128/aem.43.5.1086-1091.1982. PMID:16346007
- Bradbeer JF, Hancocks R, Spyropoulos F, Norton IT. Self-structuring foods based on acid-sensitive low and high acyl mixed gellan systems to impact on satiety. Food Hydrocoll. 2014;35:522-530. doi:10.1016/j.foodhyd.2013.07.014. PMID:24882914
- US Department of Agriculture. Nonagricultural (nonorganic) substances allowed as ingredients in or on processed products labeled as "organic" or "made with organic (specified ingredients or food group(s))." 7 CFR 205.605(a)(13) and (b)(18). Accessed 2026-10-04.
- Agricultural Marketing Service, USDA. Amendments to the National List of Allowed and Prohibited Substances per October 2020 and April 2021 NOSB Recommendations (Handling, Crops). Final rule. 87 FR 68021. November 14, 2022.
- Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives. Gellan gum. In: Toxicological evaluation of certain food additives and contaminants. WHO Food Additives Series 28. Geneva: World Health Organization; 1991. Accessed 2026-10-04.
- Anderson DM, Brydon WG, Eastwood MA. The dietary effects of gellan gum in humans. Food Addit Contam. 1988;5(3):237-49. doi:10.1080/02652038809373701. PMID:3294053
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