Food or edible material: processes – compositions – and products – Products per se – or processes of preparing or treating... – Reaction flavor per se – or containing reaction flavor...
Reexamination Certificate
1999-09-27
2004-02-17
Wong, Leslie (Department: 1761)
Food or edible material: processes, compositions, and products
Products per se, or processes of preparing or treating...
Reaction flavor per se, or containing reaction flavor...
C426S089000, C426S534000, C426S650000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06692788
ABSTRACT:
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to compositions for generating flavours in foodstuffs, to foodstuffs incorporating such compositions and to processes for producing them. In particular, the present invention relates to compositions for generating cooked (e.g. cooked meat) flavours in a foodstuff in situ, which compositions comprise flavour precursors which react on heating to generate the flavours.
2. Background to the Invention
The Maillard reaction
The term “Maillard reaction” and “Maillard reactants/products” are terms of art which define the complex series of chemical reactions between carbonyl and amino components derived from biological systems and the associated reactants and products, respectively. The term Maillard reaction is used herein in the established broad sense to refer to these reactions, and includes the closely associated reactions which are usually coupled with the Maillard reaction sensu stricto (such as Strecker degradation).
In foods, the Maillard reaction results in both the production of flavours and browning (see Bailey, M.E. (1994)
Maillard reactions and meat flavour development
, pages 153-173, In:
Flavour of meat and meat products
, Ed. F. Shahidi, Academic Press; Ames, J. M. (1992)
The Maillard Reaction
, pages 99-143, In:
Biochemistry of Food Proteins
, Ed. B. J. F. Hudson, Elsevier App. Sci. London).
With respect to flavour generation, the Maillard reaction can be broken down into four stages. The first stage involves the formation of glycosylamines. The second stage involves rearrangement of the glycosylamines to form Amadori and Heyns rearrangement products (often abbreviated in the literature to “ARPs” and “HRPs”, respectively). The third stage involves dehydration and or fission of the Amadori and Heyns rearrangement products to furan derivatives, reductones and other carbonyl compounds (which may have significant organoleptic qualities). (These “third stage products” may also be produced without the formation of ARP's or HRP's. The fourth stage involves the conversion of these furan derivatives, reductones and other carbonyl compounds into coloured and aroma/flavour compounds. Thus, products and reactants present in both the third and fourth stage of the Maillard reaction contribute towards aroma and or flavour.
Thus, the terms “Maillard reaction”, “Amadori rearrangement product”, “Heyns rearrangement product”, “aroma compound” and “flavour compound”, unless indicated otherwise, are used herein in the above-described senses.
Further, the term “post-rearrangement Maillard reactant” is intended to define Maillard reactants, intermediates and products which correspond to those which are elaborated from the Amadori and Heyns rearrangement products within the Maillard reactions which occur in (or are connected with) the third and fourth stages of the Millard reaction (as defined above). Thus, the term “post-rearrangement Maillard reactant” encompasses Maillard reactants, intermediates and products which can be (but not necessarily are) elaborated within the Maillard reaction. Thus, the term “post-rearrangement Millard reactant” covers natural and synthetic equivalents of Millard reactants, intermediates and products which are elaborated by the Millard reaction.
Thus, as used herein, the term
post
-
rearrangement Maillard reactant
defines those compounds which are elaborated during the Millard reaction at a point downstream of the second (rearrangement) step of the Maillard reaction (as described above), including natural and synthetic equivalents thereof.
Problems associated with reduced cooking times
In the interests of convenience and cost efficiency, it is often desirable to reduce the time and/or temperature used in the cooking of various foods. However, reduced cooking time/temperature is often associated with severe disadvantages; the flavour and aroma of the food is often impaired and browning (which may be highly desirable, e.g. in meat cookery and in baking) may not fully develop.
These problems arise because many of the chemicals which produce browning and flavour/aroma are generated as part of a complex cascading and interlinked series of chemical reactions which flow from certain components originally present in the uncooked food. The products include the aroma/flavour compounds produced via the Maillard reaction (described above). A reduction in the time over which these reactions are allowed to proceed results in truncation of the reaction pathways and accordingly a much restricted range of the end products (e.g. the aroma/flavour compounds) associated with cooked flavours and/or colours.
These problems are particularly acute with microwave cooking. Here, cooking times are drastically reduced and both browning and flavour/aroma development are accordingly severely restricted.
The problem of inadequate colour generation has been addressed in the art by the provision of various browning agents based on caramelization of sugars and/or the Mallard reaction between naturally occurring reducing sugars, amino acids, amines, peptides and proteins to form coloured melanoidins (see e.g. U.S. Pat. No. 5,091,200).
The problem of inadequate flavour/aroma generation has been addressed by the use of so-called “process flavours” (also called “finished flavours” ). These food flavouring compositions comprise various formulations of flavour/aroma compounds (often produced by controlled Maillard reaction of various selected precursors or foodstuffs in vitro) which are intended to create the flavour/aroma chemicals normally produced over the course of cooking (so compensating for their absence in uncooked/microwaved food products).
However, finished flavours may not provide a complete flavour profile. For example, aromas/flavours associated with volatile compounds may be present at a reduced level (having been lost during the preparation process). Moreover, many components of the finished flavour may be flashed off during cooking (so leading to loss from the flavour profile of important aroma volatiles).
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide materials and methods for efficiently generating cooked flavours and aromas (and optionally colours) in foods which at least partially overcomes the aforementioned problems associated with finished (process) flavours.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
According to the present invention there is provided a composition for generating a cooked flavour in a foodstuff, the composition comprising (or consisting essentially of) flavour precursors, which precursors react on heating to generate the flavour, maintain a reactive association after inclusion in the foodstuff and comprise a sulphur source and/or an amino acid together with one or more reductones.
As used herein, the term “flavour precursor” is intended to define compounds or chemical moieties which can take part in one or more reactions which yield products which contribute to a cooked flavour in a food. Such flavour precursors therefore need not be flavouring compounds per se.
As used herein, the term “reductone” is intended to cover sugar-derived post-rearrangement Maillard reactants and their natural and synthetic equivalents, including carbonyls and cyclic, aliphatic and alicyclic ketones.
Thus, the compositions of the invention are activated within the foodstuff, and so generate flavour compounds in situ. This improves the distribution of the flavour/aroma compounds throughout the foodstuff and ensures that volatiles (and other “top notes”) are more effectively introduced into the flavour profile.
Moreover, the use of a reductone means that flavour generation develops quickly, because the (relatively slow) earliest stages of the Maillard reaction are effectively dispensed with. Thus, the provision of Maillard reaction downstream intermediates permits the Maillard reaction to begin within the food at a relatively advanced stage; the invention therefore provides a “shortcut” to the complex flavour/aroma compounds which arise as end products of the Maillard reaction.
Thus, the invention finds particular
Ames Jennifer Marjorie
Anderson Adam
Copsey Jonathan Paul
Mlotkiewicz Jerzy Aleksander
Mottram Donald Stewart
Kerry Ingredients (UK) Limited
Wong Leslie
LandOfFree
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