alt Hacker NewsJust for my understanding, what is the issue with xanthan gum and locust bean gum? You need thickeners, stabilizers, and emulsifiers if you want high quality ice cream and that applies to both industrial as well as artisanal.
Xanthan or Agar Agar are commonly used even in household gelato (think a 1kg ice cream machine or something like a Ninja Creami - which is one of my own ever favorite and most recommended appliances) to reduce the formation of ice crystals. Locust Bean Gum and Guar Gum or is a thickener and can greatly improve the creaminess of the final product.
Historically people used a lot of egg yolks as emulsifiers in ice creams, but there are reasons to limit them or directly not have them in your gelato. Think even just fat content, or allergies, or personal preference. For that you will need some sort of natural gum and as far as I know there are no known health hazards associated with them (unless you consume crazy amount like 10-20g/day, which means you have to eat it from the jar with a spoon... I would not recommend)
They're basically used as you say to replace things like eggs and milk. The whole point of that from the industrial perspective is to save on cost, they weren't removed on health grounds. It was pointed out in a BBC documentary recently that most supermarket ice cream is now so shelf stable that if it wasn't for rats and mice which love the sugar, it wouldn't need to be kept frozen at all during transport because of all the emulsifiers.
In any case, the whole distinction around UPF vs non-UPF is the addition of ingredients that would not form part of a human diet typically. The thread above me was basically saying all ice creams are full of UPF ingredients and then someone's counterpoint was that there's plenty of good choice of non-UPFs. My point was that even things that "look" non-UPF often are. Whether UPFs are good or bad is up for debate and discussion although countries that consume a lot of them generally have much worse health outcomes.