Food or edible material: processes – compositions – and products – Product with added plural inorganic mineral or element...
Utility Patent
1999-06-17
2001-01-02
Pratt, Helen (Department: 1761)
Food or edible material: processes, compositions, and products
Product with added plural inorganic mineral or element...
C426S453000, C426S455000, C426S458000, C426S464000, C426S620000, C426S648000
Utility Patent
active
06168811
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND
The present invention relates to fortifying edible compositions with a fortificant or a combination of fortificants in such a way that the sensory characteristics of the edible compositions are substantially not affected by the fortification, and the edible compositions produced thereby.
Fortificants play a vital role in nutrition. Calcium, phosphorous, sodium, potassium, and chloride are required by the body in relatively large amounts and traces of copper, iron, zinc, cobalt magnesium, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, silicon, selenium and vandium are also essential for good nutrition. Since the body does not synthesize these materials, they must be supplied in the diet.
Modern Inorganic Pharmaceutical Chemistry
, Discher, Medwick and Bailey, Second Edition, page 393.
Generally, addition of a small amount of a fortificant or a mixture of fortificants to an edible composition (about less than 1% by weight of the composition) does not affect the overall sensory characteristics of the composition and can therefore be accomplished relatively easily. However, meeting the current U.S. recommended dietary allowance (USRDA) for most fortificants requires fortifying an edible composition with 1% or more of the fortificant or mixture of fortificants by weight of the composition, which affects the processing as well as the sensory characteristics of the fortified composition.
It was found that the addition of fortificants at these high levels can result in a composition having an off-color, off-texture and/or off-taste, all of which are unpleasing to the eye and palate. For example, sensory analysis showed that addition of calcium resulted in a final product with a chalky, less sweet taste, causing the fortified edible composition to score differently from a non-fortified control in a taste test.
Previously, workers in the field tried to mask the off-sensory characteristics associated with fortification by adding the fortificants at different points of the process for making the edible composition of choice. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,258,189 and 5,268,870 (Efstathiou) disclose fortifying a ready-to-eat (R-T-E) cereal with vitamin-mineral complexes by homogenously dispersing the complexes with a cooked cereal mass prior to piece forming and finish drying and U.S. Pat. No. 4,478,857 (Stauss) discloses adding vitamins and minerals to a milled corn and soy-bean flour.
Additional investigators found that while adding fortificants at the end of the processing produced less of an interference with the composition's sensory characteristics, adding substantial amounts of fortificants to the composition nonetheless presented off-taste and appearance problems.
Since most fortificants are a fine powder, it was suspected that the high surface area and disperseability of fortificant powders allowed them to interact with the senses to a noticeable degree. Prior practices attempted to overcome this problem by coating mineral particles with carriers such as fats and oils. U.S. Pat. No. 3,992,555 (Kovacs) discloses avoiding undesirable odor, color and flavor characteristics associated with mineral fortification by coating a mineral or a mixture of minerals with an assimilable fat. U.S. Pat. No. 3,767,824 (Keyser) and U.S. Pat. No. 3,784,716 (Spangler) describe coating a dried cereal with vitamins which are themselves coated with a fatty composition or a hard fatty acid. Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 3,037,911 (Stoyle) discloses masking the off-flavors of water soluble vitamins by coating them with a fatty composition and U.S. Pat. No. 3,035,985 (Stoyle) describes rendering iron tasteless by coating it with a fatty composition. U.S. Pat. No.3,860,733 discloses masking the taste of vitamin-mineral mixes by microencapsulation with a solvent-containing solution. U.S. Pat. No. 5,643,623 (Schmitz) discloses a health food product fortified with an antioxidant mixture integrated within a lipid containing core that prevents discoloration of the food product. U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,445,837 and 5,468,506 disclose fortifying foods with a bioavailable source of calcium which is dissolved in a sweetener composition. U.S. Pat. No. 5,514,387 discloses enriching dough with calcium by admixing emulsifying amounts of a fatty acid ester and a stearoyl lactylate.
All of the prior efforts to mask or reduce the disagreeable sensory characteristics associated with fortification involved coating or encapsulating the fortificants so as to prevent the interaction ofthe fortificants with the senses. The problem with this approach is that it is not cost effective. Coating agents are expensive and the encapsulation process can use spray drying or fluid bed granulating which requires high energy use.
The present invention addresses this problem by providing a cost effective process of fortifying an edible food composition substantially without altering the sensory characteristics of the edible composition and by providing the edible food composition made thereby.
SUMMARY
The present invention relates to agglomerated granules which, when added to an edible composition, substantially do not alter its sensory characteristics. The invention also relates to an edible composition to which these agglomerated granules are added. Further, the invention relates to a process for producing an edible composition containing agglomerated granules which substantially do not change the sensory characteristics of the composition comprising agglomerating fortificant particles with a binding/masking agent and adding the particles to the edible composition.
Other embodiments of the present invention are further described hereinbelow.
DESCRIPTION
The present invention relates to the discovery that fortificant particles can be agglomerated with a binding/masking agent, forming distinct agglomerated granules, which can also be referred to as “bits”. Each agglomerated granule consists of agglomerated particles of a single fortificant or of a combination of fortificants. The terms “fortificant” and “fortificants” hereinafter refer to minerals that are required for nutrition such as, for example, calcium, zinc, iron or other transition metals; and to other fortificants that are required for nutrition such as, for example, vitamins or riboflavin.
Agglomeration, as is normally understood by those skilled in the art, refers to particle size enlargement. Agglomeration of fortificant particles into granules decreases the surface area, disperseability and solubility ofthe fortificants, which is thought to reduce their interaction with the senses. This is in contrast to coating fortificant particles, which does not reduce the surface area ofthe fortificants and which prevents rather than reduces the interaction ofthe particles with the senses. Agglomerating rather than coating fortificant particles allows the addition of higher amounts of fortificants to an edible composition substantially without affecting the sensory characteristics ofthe composition, such as, for example, its taste, smell, texture, mouthfeel, odor and color. That is, when an edible composition fortified with agglomerated fortificant particles is compared to an edible composition which is not fortified with fortificants, a trained sensory panel will not be able to detect a difference in the sensory characteristics of the two compositions at a 90% confidence level.
The binding/masking agent contemplated by the present invention includes but is not limited to syrup, most preferably corn syrup. The binding/masking agent both binds the fortificant particles together (thereby agglomerating them) and substantially masks any off-color, off-texture, or off-taste that would have otherwise resulted from the addition of a fortificant or fortificants to an edible composition.
The edible compositions of the present invention include any edible composition, preferably cereals, food bars, confections, breads, snacks, or vitamin supplements; more preferably cereals; and most preferably R-T-E cereals. The edible compositions preferably comprise up to about 2% of the fortificants by weight of the compositio
Clark Douglas
Francisco Neal
Gillis Elizabeth
Gobble Harold
Kincaid James
Fulbright & Jaworski LLP
Kellogg Company
Pratt Helen
LandOfFree
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