Everything you wanted to know about gelatin

Most weeks, this column is as much about cooking techniques as it is about food. This isn’t one of those weeks. I will confess right here, in the first paragraph, that I have not tried cooking with most of the things I’m writing about here.

This is a column about gelatin.

I really like jelly-textured candies and I love marshmallows, but other gelatin desserts don’t excite me much. However, this is the holiday season, and recipes are beginning to surface on the Internet and in magazines for that new-old favorite: sparkling gelatin (actually, sparkling dessert concoctions made with Jell-O).

First of all, yes, I did make a batch of lime Jell-O, using club soda instead of cold water. It was very fizzy as I poured it into my molds, but it flattened out pretty fast. I did not try to make fizzy gelatin fruit blocks with Knox brand gelatin, and I didn’t try making fizzy gel blocks with the vegetarian alternative: agar-agar, which is made from seaweed.

There are many many recipes online for making these effervescent gelled desserts (including many that include alcohol). If that’s what you want, search for sparkling gelatine desserts and your cup will runneth over.

This week’s column is more about the pros and cons of gelatin in its several forms. First, let’s be clear that gelatin is made from some of the less appetizing portions of the bodies of cows, pigs and horses. I’m not super finicky and sensitive, but the ingredient list is pretty off-putting. So that’s the strike one against gelatin products (including Jell-O and Knox).

On the plus side for gelatin products: They have a lot of protein, and are believed to strengthen your fingernails. They are from parts of animal bodies with a lot of collagen, and for this reason they are believed to help protect your bone cartilage and reduce joint pain and stiffness. However, to reap this benefit you really need to take a supplement such as NutriJoint (made by Knox) daily for at least a few months (and probably, if it works for you, indefinitely). It’s a flavorless powder that you mix in with a drink you like. Apparently a study in the late 1990s at Ball State University found that NutriJoint relieved the joint pain of many student athletes.

Of course, the study was done for Nabisco, which at that time was the Knox parent company. But the results were encouraging enough that the company decided to proceed with production and sales of gelatin as a health supplement.

If you’re a vegetarian or are simply put off by what gelatin is made of, you can still enjoy jelled desserts by substituting agar-agar. It has many health benefits and is high in fiber, which is, of course, great for your heart and your digestion. However, because it is not made of animal collagen, it doesn’t support bone and joint health.

Japanese cooking expert Hiroko Shimbo gives an in-depth explanation of how agar-agar is made and used in her excellent cookbook, “The Japanese Kitchen.â€

In addition to providing many minerals and nutrients, she notes that it does not have to be refrigerated; it will set at temperatures between 85 and 100 degrees. It does not wobble or wiggle, like animal-based gelatin; it forms a more solid block (this will be good news to people who don’t like their food to move without their permission). And it takes beautifully to being made into shapes.

It will not adhere to the sides of  a mold, the way animal gelatins do, so you don’t have to spray the mold with Pam or brush it with oil. You can find agar-agar at many health food and gourmet stores.

It’s not that easy to find recipes for it online, but one fascinating explanation of how it’s used effectively is online at cookbook author Camilla Saulsbury’s blog, enlightenedcooking.blogspot.com.

She uses it to make the Italian pudding called panna cotta.