Understanding the Benefits of Tricalcium Phosphate in Food Manufacturing

Calcium has long been recognized as beneficial to one’s health when used as a supplement in food manufacturing. Its close ties to the human body for the formation and protection to bones benefits people in every age of development. Why would it be paired with phosphate, though? Does that give it greater benefit? Bell Chem, your food ingredient supplier, is here to answer those questions and many more about how beneficial tricalcium phosphate is for you and why it is listed as an ingredient on so many packages. 

Chemically, calcium is a metal bonded to the phosphate ion, which creates a polyatomic nonmetal. Together the two form a strong ionic bond as Ca3(PO4)2. The two micronutrients are crucial in the formation of hydroxyapatite, which strengthens bone’s mechanical resistance and skeletal mineralization. Separately, 99% of the body’s calcium is stored in bones and is a strong indicator of bone health. Phosphorus is present in cellular membranes and nucleic acids and promotes neuromuscular function, signaling between cells, and energy production. Since these vital micronutrients are easily bonded, it’s no wonder they are present in so many food products.

Prevents caking

As a fine white powder with virtually no flavor, tricalcium phosphate prevents caking and clumping in mixes because it acts as a humectant, absorbing up to 10% of its capacity in water. These mixes can include dry pudding mixes, table salt, sugar, pancake mixes, candy mixes, et cetera. 

Fortifies foods

Obviously an extremely prevalent role for tricalcium phosphate is in fortification. Any fruit juices, cereals or other breakfast foods with “Fortified with calcium!” on the label likely contain tricalcium phosphate. Even milk must be fortified with calcium and phosphorus because so many of its nutrients are lost during pasteurization and other forms of manufacturing. Along with milk, any product derived from milk – whipped cream, yogurt, buttermilk, cream cheese – also contain tricalcium phosphate. 

Provides opacity to plant milks

Because it is cloudy and white when added to a liquid, tricalcium phosphate gives the opacity of milk when added to products such as soymilk or almond milk. Tricalcium phosphate is also an emulsifier, stabilizing the appearance of these beverages and reducing separation.

Solidifies food

In fats used in frying, yogurt, and pudding, tricalcium phosphate binds with gelling agents to solidify the structure of foods.

Lengthens shelf life

Because phosphate is acidic, tricalcium phosphate changes the pH in foods and beverages and can lengthen the overall shelf life. 

Bell Chem is a food ingredient supplier based in Longwood, FL (just north of Orlando) with hundreds of products stocked in their 50,000+ square-foot warehouse, including tricalcium phosphate. You can expect the highest quality products, expedited shipping options for maximum efficiency, and unrivaled personalized customer service. Let our knowledgeable and friendly customer service representatives and accounting staff personalize all your needs by either calling 407-339-BELL (2355) or by sending us an online message.

Guar Gum in the Dairy Industry

It may be surprising that guar gum is widely used in the dairy industry, but almost any dairy product removed from a grocery store’s refrigerated or frozen section contains this important ingredient. Let Bell Chem, your food ingredient supplier, tell you about the varied uses of guar gum in many dairy products.

How it works

Guar gum is an inexpensive hydrocolloid polysaccharide with a short hydration time, making it ideal for frozen treats. Closely related to string beans, this legume seems an odd ingredient in dairy foods, but its varied uses give it top billing in many manufactured treats.

Ice cream

Guar gum prevents the formation of ice crystals in ice cream, slows melting, and stabilizes the texture even after it is repeatedly frozen and thawed. It also creates a better mouthfeel because of its rheological behavior. Milkshakes without guar gum would quickly separate into distinct layers and show a much weaker viscosity. 

Dietary products

Because guar gum is a fiber, it is often added to milk-based dietary products to give a feeling of satiation to the consumer.

Yogurt

As yogurt is produced, whey rises to the top for easy separation. However, a small amount of the watery whey remains locked in the yogurt until the weight of the solid forces the liquid whey to the surface once more. To prevent this syneresis, which changes the overall texture of the yogurt, manufacturers add guar gum. Low-fat yogurt maintains its characteristic richness and body when guar gum both replaces fat and adds fiber.

Cheeses and cheese spreads

Much like yogurt, cheeses and cheese spreads contain guar gum as a stabilizer via water-phase management to give a better texture and body as it counters whey from forming on the exterior (weeping). It is also used as a fat replacement for low-fat and fat-free yogurt.

Puddings and mousses

In puddings, guar gum acts as a thickener and increases a pudding’s viscosity. Mousses and other aerated desserts form a firmer stabilized foam gel with the addition of guar gum, lifting whipped mousses to a new level.

Bell Chem is a food ingredient supplier based in Longwood, FL (just north of Orlando) with hundreds of products stocked in their 50,000+ square-foot warehouse, including guar gum. You can expect the highest quality products, expedited shipping options for maximum efficiency, and unrivaled personalized customer service. Let our knowledgeable and friendly customer service representatives and accounting staff personalize all your needs by either calling 407-339-BELL (2355) or by sending us an online message.

Medical Uses of Monoethanolamine

Monoethanolamine, also known as ethanolamine, C2H7NO, MEA, or ETA, is an organic, colorless, viscous, hygroscopic amino alcohol compound with an odor resembling that of ammonia. Primarily used by chemists and manufacturers as a feedstock material, it is also used in the production of chemical processes, corrosion inhibitors, detergents, emulsifiers, polishes and pharmaceuticals. USP ingredient supplier Bell Chem wants its customers to know more about this last category, pharmaceuticals, and specifically the medical uses of monoethanolamine. 

As a factor within lecithin, monoethanolamine is sequestered in most living tissue where it removes carbon dioxide from gas. This role categorizes monoethanolamine as a useful chemical for pharmaceutical uses.

Acting as a sclerosing agent

The most prominent role of monoethanolamine in medical use is as a mild sclerosing agent. When injected as ethanolamine oleate into a vein, this pharmaceutical drug treats esophageal varices, or dilated blood vessels, within esophageal tissue and/or the lining of the cardiac portion of the stomach. Esophageal varices are a symptom of liver disease and can cause severe bleeding that either exits the body through the throat or through the anus. Ethanolamine oleate works on the inflamed tissues, laying down a thin layer of scar tissue much like a scab on the skin to reduce or eliminate blood from emanating through the dilated blood vessels. Untreated esophageal varices are often fatal; the venous injection of monoethanolamine saves the lives of patients with recent or ongoing episodes of esophageal varices when dosed several times over a 6-month timeframe. 

Helping with histamine sensitivity

Derivatives of monoethanolamine are considered H1 antagonists; they block the body’s H1 receptors on the surface of cells. When these receptors are blocked, they are unable to release histamine from a white blood cell called a mast cell. Histamines regulate the secretion of gastric acid, inflammation, and the constriction and dilation of blood vessels, but many people have a hypersensitivity to histamines, causing them to overcompensate and cause excess gastric acid to flood the stomach creating ulcers or erosion of the esophagus and stomach lining; hyperinflammation leading to redness, soreness, or itching on the skin’s surface; or excessive blood vessel disorders which may lead to hyper- or hypotension. Adding monoethanolamine derivatives to the body assuages this superabundant activity.

Aiding in sleep

Insomnia plagues many individuals, and much research postulates histamines acting through H1 regulate the body’s sleep/wake cycle. Because monoethanolamine derivatives are H1 antagonists, they return the body to a more somnolent state as they cross the blood/brain barrier and produce anticholinergic reactions. One of these reactions is sedation.

Most people are not familiar with histamines, but are extremely well versed in the role of antihistamines, which are taken in response to allergic rhinitis or another immune response. The process of “blocking histamines” is, more realistically, the process of not allowing histamines to coagulate an area, or for existing histamines to be released from the area in question. Monoethanolamine has the ability to do both.

Bell Chem is a USP ingredient supplier based in Longwood, FL (just north of Orlando) with hundreds of products stocked in their 50,000+ square-foot warehouse, including monoethanolamine. You can expect the highest quality products, expedited shipping options for maximum efficiency, and unrivaled personalized customer service. Let our knowledgeable and friendly customer service representatives and accounting staff personalize all your needs by either calling 407-339-BELL (2355) or by sending us an online message.

Benefits of Using Heptane

If you could anthropomorphize heptane, it would be your favorite employee – the one who waves an excited hand in the air and shouts, “I can do that!” when any project is mentioned. Industrial chemical supplier Bell Chem stocks versatile heptane. Learn why your business will benefit from this wonder chemical.

Heptane (C7H16) is a straight-chain alkane hydrocarbon derived from petroleum. It is colorless and smells like gasoline. With a boiling point of 98.42C, heptane heats and boils rapidly. Its evaporation rate, on the other hand, is extremely slow. The low density of heptane causes water to sink when it is combined with liquid heptane. This feature is also responsible for heptane’s almost complete insolubility. Many other chemicals structurally similar to heptane are much more toxic.

What makes heptane so popular? It can be manipulated to meet your exact specifications. You have an application? Heptane can be manufactured to meet that need. 

As a solvent

In a laboratory setting, heptane is a useful non-polar solvent and a reagent for organic synthesis.

Printing processes find heptane mixed with dye creates the market-perfect ink. Used worldwide in printers, stamp pads, and ball-point pens, heptane keeps the world in print. Even more impressive, heptane is used by law enforcement agencies as a solvent for processing latent fingerprints.
The main choice of a solvent or thinner for rubber cement is heptane. As unvulcanized rubber is compounded, heptane is added. Differing percentages of heptane will create varied grades of rubber cement.

As an aromatic hydrocarbon, heptane works well as a solvent in paint coating. Heptane dissolves pigments and binding agents prior to use. 

As an extractor

To extract oils from vegetables, using a machine press is environmentally harsh. Using heptane is much easier on the earth.

Heptane’s amazing volatility

Heptane is a good outdoor liquid fuel because of its volatility. Its ability to expel heat energy quickly and reliably during hydrocarbon combustion feeds the fire of outdoor grills.

The volatility of heptane has another striking use: anesthesia. A volatile substance such as heptane has the ability to temporarily desensitize the body and produce lack of consciousness. 

Heptane’s role in octane ratings

Heptane’s main claim is its link to gasoline and octane ratings. Crude oil is extracted from the ground, and heptane, gasoline, and hexane are extruded. Gasoline ratings are based on a scale known as the octane rating. On the octane scale, heptane rates 0%. As the scale escalates from, say, 87% octane to 93%, the amount of heptane decreases. Gassing up your car with a low octane rating may cause undue engine pinging and wear down engine parts more quickly than lower octane fuel.

Bell Chem is a industrial chemical supplier based in Longwood, FL (just north of Orlando) with hundreds of products stocked in their 50,000+ square-foot warehouse, including heptane. You can expect the highest quality products, expedited shipping options for maximum efficiency, and unrivaled personalized customer service. Let our knowledgeable and friendly customer service representatives and accounting staff personalize all your needs by either calling 407-339-BELL (2355) or by sending us an online message.

Commonly Used Preservatives in Orange Juice

The orange juice you drink may have “fresh squeezed” on the container, but it contains more than just oranges. Surprisingly, true freshly-squeezed orange juice has a shelf life of only a few hours. In order to maintain its stability, orange juice contains preservatives, and your food ingredient supplier, Bell Chem, gives you an idea of what to expect on your orange juice container, and the role of each preservative.

First, let’s discuss pasteurization. Many pundits argue that pasteurization is more economical and safer than adding chemicals. However, in the case of orange juice, pasteurization destroys most of the nutrients within orange juice, rendering it only slightly better than fruit-flavored juice. When manufacturers do choose to pasteurize to kill bacteria, they often have to add nutritive substances back into the juice.

Ascorbic acid

Vitamin C’s source is ascorbic acid, which usually presents as a powder in orange juice. As the name implies, ascorbic acid is an acidulant as well as an antioxidant. Its claim to fame is its ability to keep orange juice from tinting brown. Use ascorbic acid in conjunction with another strong acid for better results. Since it is the forerunner to Vitamin C, many orange juices proudly display its addition in the ingredients list, and tout their “High in Vitamin C” claim on the label.

Benzoic acid

This antimicrobial preservative works wonders at pH levels between 2.5 and 4.0. With orange juice clocking in at pH 3.9, benzoic acid successfully inhibits the growth of bacteria and yeasts. The addition of benzoic acid greatly increases the shelf life of orange juice.

Citric acid

The white crystalline form of citric acid monohydrate balances the pH of orange juice as an acidulant and knocks out microbial growth as an antioxidant. As a bonus, citric acid is how consumers judge the taste of orange juice, passing along its tart flavor.

Sodium benzoate

This white crystalline powder stops bacterial, fungal, and microbial growth and has a higher rate of inhibition than other preservatives. The food industry has relied on sodium benzoate for more than 100 years.

Sodium carboxymethylcellulose (CMC)

As a white, fine powder, CMC thickens juices and improves mouthfeel. As an emulsifier, CMC suspends pulp within the juice matrix. This nifty trick retains the color people recognize as fresh juice.

Sorbic acid

A natural organic compound, sorbic acid preserves all forms of juice except frozen concentrated orange juice. Not much sorbic acid is required to deter the growth of bacteria, molds, and yeast. 

Sulfur dioxide

Working as a preservative and antioxidant, sulfur dioxide increases shelf life as it kills microorganisms.

Bell Chem is a food ingredient supplier based in Longwood, FL (just north of Orlando) with hundreds of products stocked in their 50,000+ square-foot warehouse, including many orange juice preservatives. You can expect the highest quality products, expedited shipping options for maximum efficiency, and unrivaled personalized customer service. Let our knowledgeable and friendly customer service representatives and accounting staff personalize all your needs by either calling 407-339-BELL (2355) or by sending us an online message.

Rice Flour in Food Manufacturing

For anyone with celiac disease or an aversion to gluten, finding a good substitute for wheat flour is difficult. Rice flour’s promise of eased digestion is bringing it to the forefront for food manufacturers, and your food ingredient supplier, Bell Chem, presents the following examples of how rice flour is taking the cooking and baking worlds by storm. 

Cereal

Breakfast cereals have long relied on rice flour as a prime ingredient since its tremendous amount of amylose: the higher the amylose content, the more starch is contained in the rice flour and the stiffer the gel can be produced. This gel gives the crisp crunch to cereals since rice flour is not as prone to absorb water…or milk. As cereals containing rice flour cool after baking, the porous texture has the ability to be more tightly regulated which also leads to a crisper cereal.

Snack Foods

When applied to the outer coating of snack foods, rice flour has two tasks: it aids in the coating’s adhesion to the snack and gives a satisfying crunch to the snack’s exterior. Artisan loaves also use this feature when dusting the exterior of the loaves before baking.

Food in Restaurants

Restaurants have learned to rely more heavily on rice flour for frying since it produces a crisper, lighter texture to foods. Even the ubiquitous French fry is crunchier when rice flour coats the fries prior to entering the fryer. In sauces and sauce mixes, rice flour plumps up the volume, giving a more pleasant mouthfeel. 

Baby Foods

Rice flour is a key ingredient in many baby foods, and is often one of the first foods introduced to infants in the form of rice cereal. It is easily digestible and contributes to few allergic reactions. Studies have proven the amino acid profile of rice flour is quite similar to the amino acid profile of breast milk. Additionally, rice flour contains a high starch content, lipids (including unsaturated fatty acids), and necessary fiber. 

Food for the Elderly

On the other side of the human lifespan, rice flour is being touted as an impressive contender for nutritional food of the year for our aging population. Compared to other cereal grains, rice flour is more nutritious, and it contains more protein than yogurt. 

Bell Chem is a food ingredient supplier based in Longwood, FL (just north of Orlando) with hundreds of products stocked in their 50,000+ square-foot warehouse, including rice flour. You can expect the highest quality products, expedited shipping options for maximum efficiency, and unrivaled personalized customer service. Let our knowledgeable and friendly customer service representatives and accounting staff personalize all your needs by either calling 407-339-BELL (2355) or by sending us an online message.

Magnesium Stearate in Medicine and Beyond

Tablets and pills, vitamins and powders. These all owe their consistency – the amount of active ingredient per serving – to products such as magnesium stearate. This long-chain saturated fat acts as a flow agent allowing ingredients to properly separate into tiny capsules without clogging machinery or adhering to the sides of capsules. As a USP ingredient supplier, Bell Chem ensures its magnesium stearate meets all medical levels of purity. This ingredient is utilized in more than the pharmaceutical industry, though. Read below for the many areas where magnesium stearate is the best choice for your company.

Magnesium Stearate

Usually processed with a salt (magnesium), stearic acid is derived from many animal or plant sources, including chicken, beef, palm oil, eggs, salmon, coconut oil, and dairy products. Magnesium ions bond with stearate molecules to form an acid/base reaction creating a salt: magnesium stearate. At room temperature, magnesium stearate is a solid, white powder. 

Scientists have confirmed stearic acid is the sole long-chain saturated fat that does not raise levels of cholesterol. 

Pharmaceutical uses

Magnesium stearate is an inactive ingredient that keeps active ingredients flowing freely. Medications are often coated with magnesium stearate, and the flavor is rather distinct. As a saturated fat, it also acts as a lubricant for many medications.

Inside the body, magnesium stearate breaks down slowly, allowing medication to pass through the stomach before being broken down in the small intestine where the medication is absorbed rather than destroyed in the extremely acidic conditions of the stomach.

Cosmetics

As with medications, magnesium stearate adds bulk to active ingredients, helps separate the ingredients to give the same amount of ingredient with every use, and it also acts as a handy colorant for products that would normally be transparent or clear. 

Many cosmetics, such as foundations, eyeliner, deodorants, blushes, lipstick, face powder, and hair care products rely on magnesium stearate for its thickening, lubricating, and binding properties.

For products with an oily base, magnesium stearate deters separation of oils from liquids.

Food industry

Magnesium stearate is an emulsifier, binder, and thickener in processed foods. Spices and baking ingredients enjoy its anti-caking abilities, it acts as an emulsifier in chewing gum and confections, and magnesium stearate thickens dietary supplements. 

Bell Chem is a USP ingredient supplier based in Longwood, Florida, (just north of Orlando) with hundreds of products stocked in their 50,000+ square-foot warehouse, including magnesium stearate. You can expect the highest quality products, expedited shipping options for maximum efficiency, and unrivaled personalized customer service. Let our knowledgeable and friendly customer service representatives and accounting staff personalize all your needs by either calling 407-339-BELL (2355) or by sending us an online message.

Dextrose Uses in Food and Medicine

Dextrose, like the other simple monosaccharides fructose, galactose, and glucose, is often an ingredient in foods and medicines as an artificial sweetener. Unlike other sweeteners, dextrose is derived from the starch of corn. As a food and ingredient supplier, Bell Chem ensures its pure dextrose is food and pharmaceutical grade for your growing business. 

Medical industry

Glucose is manufactured within the human body. When internal mechanisms fail and the body is not able to produce adequate amounts of blood glucose, the body negatively reacts by altering brain functionality and metabolic processes. Physicians often intervene with intravenous dextrose. Dextrose is chemically identical to glucose, so the body is able to utilize it in the same methods it would with glucose and raise low blood sugar levels rapidly. Dextrose tablets or gels are often prescribed for patients prone to episodes of low blood sugar.

When the body’s ready stores of water are depleted, it becomes dehydrated. Most of the time drinking water alleviates dehydration, but sometimes medical intervention is necessary if a patient is not able to take in water orally. Dextrose is added to a saline solution given intravenously in the form of a rehydration drip.

Patients who are unable to take in food on a regular basis rely on dextrose, amino acids, and other nutrients to boost their caloric and nutritional intake and remove the risk of malnourishment. Dextrose is the carbohydrate component of the body’s main 3 nutritional components of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins. Amino acids are the building blocks of protein, and fats may be given in many forms. Together these make up total parenteral nutrition (TPN) for patients unable to regularly consume liquids or solids.

Hyperkalemia is a medical condition where potassium levels are elevated. Dextrose followed by insulin is often administered since cells taking in dextrose are also taking in potassium, thereby lowering the potassium levels of the blood.

Alcohol intoxication is also treated with dextrose. In alcohol intoxication, the liver is no longer able to remove all the alcohol from the blood quickly enough and body systems begin to relax, including the respiratory and cardiovascular systems. Intravenous fluid with 50% dextrose cleanses the blood of alcohol as it feeds the liver much-needed energy to repair and work properly.

Foods and beverages

Dextrose is dried or crystallized from corn or wheat starch, then added as a liquid or powder ingredient in foods and beverages. Not surprisingly, high fructose corn syrup contains dextrose. This product is used frequently in beverages and cereals, baked goods and packaged foods.

When foods are overly spicy or salty, dextrose is able to stabilize the flavors since it is only 80% as sweet as sucrose, thereby not overpowering the other flavors.

Some foodstuffs, such as jams, experience a longer shelf life with the addition of dextrose since it acts as a preservative.

Bodybuilders and other extreme athletes rapidly deplete energy stores when working out on a punishing schedule. Dextrose replenishes glycogen stored in the liver. Quickly restoring glycogen allows muscles to retain strength and add bulk.

Bell Chem is a food and ingredient supplier based in Longwood, FL (just north of Orlando) with hundreds of products stocked in their 50,000+ square-foot warehouse, including CSANTM sanitation products. You can expect the highest quality products, expedited shipping options for maximum efficiency, and unrivaled personalized customer service. Let our knowledgeable and friendly customer service representatives and accounting staff personalize all your needs by either calling 407-339-BELL (2355) or by sending us an online message.

The Many Uses of Sodium Hypochlorite a.k.a. Liquid Bleach

Sodium hypochlorite is renowned for disinfecting and decontaminating surfaces. Its uses range from hospital rooms to waste disposal plants. Industrial chemical supplier Bell Chem’s 10%-11% sodium hypochlorite is technical grade. It’s significantly stronger than traditional box-store bleach, which makes it applicable for industrial settings since this percentage readily disinfects. What industries use sodium hypochlorite? Read below to learn about how this inexpensive, effective chemical is used across industries.

Commercial laundry services

The first use of sodium hypochlorite was in France where it was created and readily adapted to bleach cotton. From those humble beginnings, liquid bleach has taken on hundreds of uses. Still, fabric care is one of its most ubiquitous challenges. Commercial laundries rely on the stain-eradicating power of sodium hypochlorite. Clothes laundered in bleach appear whiter and significantly cleaner to consumers. Even better, since it works at room temperature, it is significantly more efficient than introducing high temperatures and less effective chemicals.

Laboratories and chemical factories

Chemical processes demand clean, sanitized surfaces to deter any errors in reactions. Sodium hypochlorite has assumed this role for more than half a century. When added to biological materials, sodium hypochlorite easily inactivates mycobacterium, viruses, fungi, and bacteria for simpler interactions. When lab personnel interact with biological agents, the disposal of those transactions is greatly simplified with sodium hypochlorite. Since liquid bleach easily kills microorganisms, the disposal of used experimental agents is a quick process.

Pool services

Algae growth is a common threat to public and private swimming pools. Liquid bleach rapidly amends pH imbalances (the standard pH of 11% sodium hypochlorite is 13) and kills organisms present in the water through oxidation and disinfection. Slow-acting sodium hypochlorite maintains clear water and deters the buildup of biofilm by keeping botanical growth at bay. Microorganisms are unable to build any defense against sodium hypochlorite, so its continued use will not be bound by biological resistance.

Public water treatment

As water is being treated, sodium hypochlorite neutralizes the odors created by sulfur hydrogen gas and ammonia. Without the addition of chlorine oxidizing the water, most water would not be considered safe to consume. Water treatment professionals and analysts have used a variety of chemicals in countless combinations to bring water to its purest standards. Through their efforts it has been determined sodium hypochlorite embodies the ultimate blend of effectiveness, safety, price, and ease of use.  

Bell Chem is an industrial chemical supplier based in Longwood, Florida, (just north of Orlando) with hundreds of products stocked in their 50,000+ square-foot warehouse, including sodium hypochlorite. You can expect the highest quality products, expedited shipping options for maximum efficiency, and unrivaled personalized customer service. Let our knowledgeable and friendly customer service representatives and accounting staff personalize all your needs by either calling 407-339-BELL (2355) or by sending us an online message.

How White Mineral Oil is Used Across Industries

White mineral oil is most notably the by-product of the process of refining crude oil. It is generally light, colorless, and odorless, which gives rise to its many uses across industries. Industrial chemical supplier Bell Chem supplies many of its customers with its pure mineral oil and wants our customers to know how white mineral oil can be used across industries.

Names of White Mineral Oil

On packages you might note white mineral oil listed as white oil, mineral oil, liquid paraffin, paraffin oil, or liquid petroleum. Along with its many names, white mineral oil has developed from many sources over the centuries. In modern times, it is most readily derived from crude oil processing. 

Two Types of White Mineral Oil

White mineral oil can be processed into food grade as well as medical grade. Both grades use white mineral oil as an application to machinery as a lubricant since all chemicals in close proximity with pharmaceutical or food products must meet higher standards. 

Food Production

White mineral oil is added to rice, barley, wheat, and oats and even sticky candies such as gummi worms since it keeps these foods from adhering to each other. Many spray oils contain white mineral oil for this same reason. Many foods are coated with white mineral oil to maintain freshness since it creates a barrier between the food and chemical reactions associated with oxygen. 

Restaurant Uses

Food grade white mineral oil is slathered on wooden cutting boards to stop liquids and odors from absorbing into the porous surface. Stainless steel utensils and surfaces are easily polished with white mineral oil. Cutlery wiped with white mineral oil after contacting food loses any lingering odor and maintains its cleanliness.

In Medicine

The pharmaceutical industry adds white mineral oil to capsules. Many topical ointments and personal care products contain this oil to reduce loss of fluid from the surface of the skin, soften skin, and lubricate. If you have ever used baby oil, you know what white mineral oil is since baby oil is white mineral oil plus a fragrance. Animals are not exempt from white mineral oil’s varied uses; in vaccines administered to many animal breeds, white mineral oil is an ingredient.

Personal Care

Personal care products including sunscreens, cold creams, lotions, and many cosmetics list white mineral oil on their labels because it is non comedogenic. Also, as a stable, inert product, consumers with sensitive skin generally have no reaction to white mineral oil.

Uses in Plastics

Plastics find white mineral oil is superior in PVC and polystyrene lubricants since it softens the beginning rubber products and enhances the melt flow rate of the end product. Plastic food packaging and utensils, children’s toys, and many other plastics also rely on white mineral oil. 

Bell Chem is a sanitation chemical supplier based in Longwood, FL (just north of Orlando) with hundreds of products stocked in their 50,000+ square-foot warehouse, including white mineral oil. You can expect the highest quality products, expedited shipping options for maximum efficiency, and unrivaled personalized customer service. Let our knowledgeable and friendly customer service representatives and accounting staff personalize all your needs by either calling 407-339-BELL (2355) or by sending us an online message.