Nitrous oxide
Nitrous oxide, commonly known as laughing gas, nitrous, nitro, or NOS is a chemical compound with the formula N2O. It is an oxide of nitrogen. At room temperature, it is a colourless, non-flammable gas, with a slightly sweet odour and taste. It is used in surgery and dentistry for its anaesthetic and analgesic effects. It is known as "laughing gas" due to the euphoric effects of inhaling it, a property that has led to its recreational use as a dissociative anaesthetic.
Nitrous oxide appears on this cooking website because it is used as a propellent for whipping syphons.
Aerosol propellant
The gas is approved for use as a food additive (also known as E942), specifically as an aerosol spray propellant. Its most common uses in this context are in aerosol whipped cream canisters, cooking sprays, and as an inert gas used to displace oxygen, to inhibit bacterial growth, when filling packages of crisps and other similar snack foods.
The gas is extremely soluble in fatty compounds. In aerosol whipped cream, it is dissolved in the fatty cream until it leaves the can, when it becomes gaseous and thus creates foam. Used in this way, it produces whipped cream four times the volume of the liquid, whereas whipping air into cream only produces twice the volume. If air were used as a propellant, oxygen would accelerate rancidification of the butterfat; nitrous oxide inhibits such degradation. Carbon dioxide cannot be used for whipped cream because it is acidic in water, which would curdle the cream and give it a seltzer-like "sparkling" sensation.
However, the whipped cream produced with nitrous oxide is unstable and will return to a more liquid state within half an hour to one hour. Thus, the method is not suitable for decorating food that will not be immediately served.
Similarly, cooking spray, which is made from various types of oils combined with lecithin (an emulsifier), may use nitrous oxide as a propellant; other propellants used in cooking spray include food-grade alcohol and propane.
Users of nitrous oxide often obtain it from whipped cream dispensers that use nitrous oxide as a propellant (see above section), for recreational use as a euphoria-inducing inhalant drug. It is not harmful in small doses, but risks due to lack of oxygen do exist.
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