Carrageenan is a generic name for a group of seaweed polysaccharides widely used in food and cosmetics for their gel-forming qualities as thickeners, emulsifiers, and stabilizers. Irish moss is especially rich in carageenan and it has a long history of being used as both food and medicine.  However, carageenan in processed food products has received some bad press recently about potentially negative health effects. We respond to many of those claims in this blog post.