I have a strong interest in the use of food as a medicine and read widely in this area.
Based on my reading, there is increased evidence that artificial sweeteners (made from chemicals) such as aspartame, sucralose and saccharin are a contributing to increases in obesity and type 2 diabetes as is the increased consumption of ultra processed foods. As a result, I was determined not to use any chemicals in Elato, nor ingredients extracted using chemicals as well as using minimal processing. This is known as clean label.
Whilst training overseas, I was surprised to learn that most gelato recipes aren't clean label as they use chemical emulsifiers rather than natural ones plus in ice cream many cheaper products use both emulsifiers and stabilisers derived from chemical processes. This is to reduce production costs.
The most common chemical emulsifiers are mono and diglyceride (E471) or polysorbate 80 (E433). Interestingly, mono and diglyceride was first discovered in nature but is now made synthetically to save cost. This is in contrast to natural emulsifiers such as egg yolk and sunflower lecithin which are found in nature and are more expensive to produce and/or store than chemical emulsifiers.
The most common chemical stabiliser is carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC - E466 or E469). This is in contrast to stabilisers extracted from nature such as guar gum and locust bean gum which are used for Elato.
Based on these issues, I was determined to create a clean label product for Elato, using authentic whole food ingredients and minimal processing. These whole food ingredients also have impressive strong tastes and pleasant flavours.
This has also meant selecting manufacturing techniques only available from domestic appliances and not using steps such as extrusion which is considered an ultra-processing step and is often used for single serve stick ice creams. It further means never using additives such as colours and artificial flavours used in ultra-processed ice cream to make the cost of production cheaper.
They never need to be used if making authentic ice cream like Elato.