Carbamide (Urea)
What it does
Flavour development in chewing gum; flour treatment.
How it's made
Synthesised.
Carbamide, better known as urea, is used in small amounts as a flour treatment agent and as a component of some chewing gums, where it can provide a source of ammonia for yeast or help with texture and freshness. It is a simple nitrogen compound that also occurs naturally as a product of protein metabolism.
Industrially urea is made on an enormous scale (mostly for fertiliser) by reacting ammonia with carbon dioxide under high pressure and temperature. The two gases combine to form ammonium carbamate, which then loses water to become urea; the food- and pharmaceutical-grade material is a purified fraction of this output.
The urea is crystallised and purified to a white food grade with tight limits on impurities. In flour and gum it is used in very small, regulated amounts, and although its name sounds unappealing, the manufactured material is a pure, simple chemical rather than anything derived from animal waste.
Possible reactions
Generally safe as used.