Food or edible material: processes – compositions – and products – Products per se – or processes of preparing or treating... – Gels or gelable composition
Reexamination Certificate
2001-12-27
2004-06-15
Bhat, N. (Department: 1761)
Food or edible material: processes, compositions, and products
Products per se, or processes of preparing or treating...
Gels or gelable composition
C426S573000, C426S576000, C426S661000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06749880
ABSTRACT:
This application claims priority based on an International Application filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty, PCT/NL00/00059, filed on Jan. 28, 2000, and European Patent Office (EPO) 99200262.6, filed on Jan. 29, 1999, which are incorporated herein in their entirety by reference.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates to hydrocolloids that are used as thickening, binding, gelling or stabilising agents in the food industry.
In the food industry hydrocolloids are in general used to thicken (gel, bind, stabilise) water-based foodstuffs. Gelatine is a popular hydrocolloid, which, contrary to other hydrocolloids which are mainly of a polysaccharide nature, is a protein. Gelatine is derived from animal slaughter offal, such as skins and bones, by hydrolysis of insoluble collagen into soluble gelatine. Collagen is the major structural component of white tissue fibers and present in all tissues and organs of animals where it constitutes almost 30% of total protein content.
Gelatine is used in a great number of food applications, where it is desired because it has a number of characteristics that are superior over other hydrocolloids used in the food industry. It is used for example as a thickening or gelling agent in jellied products such as confectionery and aspic type of foods; as a stabiliser and thickener in ice cream and icings, as emulsifier and thickener in dressings, desserts and sauces, as thickener in syrups and soups, as binder or thickener in general and as fining agent. For example, gelatine is used in gum and jelly products, such as wine gums, or gelling agent to give the end product an elastic, gummy structure. In particular, gelatine is superior over other thickening (gelling and binding) agents for the clarity and elasticity it renders to the food product.
The use of gelatine (or hydrolysed collagen) in the food industry, however, has recently been criticised because of its animal origin. Traditionally, gelatine containing foodstuff has been avoided by vegetarian consumers and by consumers whose religion teaches to avoid animal derived products like gelatine. These traditional gelatine avoiding consumers were in general satisfied with buying products that contained less superior binding agents to accommodate their vegetarian and/or religious preferences. More recently, however, the general consumer, albeit not bound by vegetarian or religious preferences, is also shifting to a preference for foodstuff wherein gelatine is replaced by another agent. Said shift in the preference of the general public is mainly understood to have been initiated by the recent occurrence of prion diseases such as seen with mad cow disease, and by concern that these prion diseases may infect humans with proteinaceous food of animal origin is eaten.
The prion diseases bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) and scrapie of cattle and sheep, respectively, are fatal neurodegenerative diseases caused by prion proteins and are characterised by a long incubation period. In humans Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), Gerstmann-Sträussler-Scheinker syndrome (GSS) and fatal familial insomnia belong to this category of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs). Although scrapie, the prototype of the family of TSEs, in sheep and goats has been known for over 200 years and has been diagnosed world-wide, it is only since 1986 that BSE has been described in cattle in the UK. By January 1988, there had been 170,259 confirmed case of BSE in Great Britain and there may exist a great number of cases of not yet overt cases of BSE. BSE apparently emerged because scrapie contaminated sheep offal, via meat and bone meal had been included in cattle feeding-stuff, and newly infected cattle material was then recycled and eaten by susceptible cattle. Brain homogenates from cows with BSE produce a characteristic pattern of brain lesions in mice. This is identical to the pattern elicited by brain tissue from individuals who recently have died from new-variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Up to now, this variant has caused the death of 35 young Britons and one Frenchman.
There is also concern that the BSE strain that seems to be transmissible to humans may have infected sheep, where it could produce a disease hardly distinguishable from scrapie. Sheep BSE may be a threat to human health, although scrape by itself seems not to transmit to humans. Indeed, BSE agent has been transmitted experimentally to sheep by the oral route and thus could have the potential to infect sheet under field conditions.
Thus far, the only known cause of prion disease is an abnormal form of the normal prion protein called aberrant prion protein. Said aberrant prion protein is mainly characterised by its resistance to proteolytic hydrolysis, it is typically quite resistant against treatment with high or low pH, and generally only looses its infectivity after prolonged treatment under high temperature.
Although most governments in Western society have taken strict measurements to alleviate public concerns related to mad cow disease, for example by strictly banning the use of animal products derived from animals with prion disease in the food industry, public concerns related to using the protein derived gelatine still exist, and seem to be growing. Consequently, among the general public lives a growing desire to consume non-gelatine derived foodstuff, that, however, has similar or comparable superior characteristics as the traditionally gelatine comprising foodstuffs have.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the present invention to provide a non-protein hydrocolloid that has suitable characteristics to serve as gelatine replacement in foodstuff of varied nature or that can be used to prepare new types of foodstuff.
The invention provides a starch composition, comprising a first fraction comprising cross-linked starch and at least a second fraction comprising depolymerised starch. Said composition is suitable for example to serve as gelatine replacement in foodstuff of varied nature, and is preferably suitable for use in foodstuff such as confectionery. Starches suitable for use in a composition according to the invention are for example chosen from maize, wheat, barley, rice, triticale, rice, millet, tapioca, arrow root, banana, potato, sweet potato starches or from high amylose starches like amylomaize, wrinkled pea starch, mung bean starch or from amylopectin rich starches like waxy maize, waxy barley, waxy wheat, waxy rice, amylopectin potato, amylopectin tapioca, amylopectin sweet potato or amylopectin banana starch. Amylopectin starches may be derived from plants that selectively produce amylopectin such as waxy cereals or amylose-free potato mutants and/or genetically modified plant varieties such as potatoes modified to selectively produce amylopectine. Cross-linked starch in general is a modified starch in which cross-links between starch macromolecules have been formed by means of bifunctional or polyfunctional chemical reagents, and results in the formation of large complexes of starch molecules with high molecular weight. Cross-links can for example be formed between amylose molecules or between amylopectine molecules, or between amylose and amylopectine molecules in the starch. Although not preferred from the viewpoint of ease of production, a first fraction according to the invention can of course also be partly depolymerised, or be modified in any other way, and a second fraction according to the invention can also be partly cross-linked, or be modified in any other way, if so desired.
Cross-linking starch in itself is a method known in the art and various agents are known. Examples are: epichlorohydrin, sodium trimetaphosphate, phosphorous oxychloride (POCl3), adipic anhydride, or other reagents with two or more halogen, halohydrin or epoxide groups or combinations which all can be used as cross-linking agents. Preferred are distarch phosphates and distarch adipates. A cross-linked or cross-bonded starch may for example of cross-bonded by 0.003 to 0.024% of adipic anhdyride, preferably by 0.01 to 0.03%. Pri
Buwalda Pieter Lykle
Meima Heine Roelf
Woltjes Jakob Roelf
Bhat N.
Cooperative Verkoop-en Productivevereniging van Aaardappelmeel e
Hoffmann & Baron , LLP
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