Food or edible material: processes – compositions – and products – Surface coated – fluid encapsulated – laminated solid... – Animal meat derived component
Reexamination Certificate
2000-08-16
2003-09-30
Bhat, Nina (Department: 1761)
Food or edible material: processes, compositions, and products
Surface coated, fluid encapsulated, laminated solid...
Animal meat derived component
C426S302000, C426S303000, C426S524000, C426S576000, C426S654000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06627237
ABSTRACT:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION
The entire disclosure of Japanese Patent Application No. 10-74800 filed on Feb. 16, 1998 and International Application No. PCT/JP99/00655 filed on Feb. 15, 1999, including specification, claims and summary is incorporated by reference in its entirety.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to frozen food and a process for preparing the same. More particularly, the present invention relates to frozen foods and a process for the preparation of frozen foods, including particularly fresh and raw fish flesh and shell and meat, which can remarkably improve taste and flavor of such foods, even after such foods or food materials or processed foods or food materials prepared by processing such foods or food materials was defrosted.
2. DESCRIPTION OF THE RELATED ART
In order to store foods or food materials for a long period of time, various difficulties have to be solved. Foods or food materials can be stored at ambient temperature for a very limited and short period of time and it is generally impossible to store foods or food materials for a long period of time even at low temperature. There is the limit in storing foods or food materials for long even at temperature lower than 0° C.
In order to allow storage of foods or food materials for a certain period of time particularly at ambient temperature and in some cases at low temperature, it is also required to prevent the decaying of foods or food materials.
The decay of foods or food materials is caused by the growth of organisms, such as putrefactive or decaying bacteria, fungi, etc., in foods or food materials. The growth of such organisms in foods or food materials may greatly depend upon the water activity in foods or food materials as well as upon conditions such as temperature, etc. in surroundings of storage of foods or food materials. The growth of organisms including putrefactive bacteria, etc. is accelerated at ambient temperature or at temperature higher than ambient temperature, so that the speed at which foods or food materials decay becomes faster as temperature becomes higher, and foods or food materials may accordingly become likely to decay at a faster speed and for a shorter period of time. On the other hand, while foods or food materials are stored at low temperature at which organisms are unlikely to grow, the multiplication of organisms can be controlled and the decay of foods and food materials can be prevented. However, the storage of foods or food materials at such low temperature may cause new problems upon thawing frozen or refrigerated foods or food materials, as will be described hereinafter.
Moreover, unless foods or food materials keep the water activity at a predetermined level, organisms including putrefactive bacteria etc. cannot grow in foods or food materials so that the decay of foods or food materials may little be caused in such a dry state. Therefore, the water activity in foods or food materials has to be controlled at a level lower than a predetermined one in order to prevent the decay of foods or food materials by putrefactive bacteria and so on.
Currently, the most common and useful way of controlling the water activity in foods or food materials at a low level may include a process of adding an additive such as a salt and/or a saccharide. As a matter of course, however, the addition of such an additive provides the foods or food materials with the taste or flavor originated from the additive. The taste originated from the additive can little be perceived, that is, that the taste or flavor of the foods or food materials cannot be spoiled by the addition of the additive thereto, if the additive would be used in a very small amount. The addition of such a very small amount of a salt and/or a saccharide, however, cannot achieve the object of controlling the water activity in foods or food materials at a low level. And this may result in a decrease of the effect of preventing the decaying of foods or food materials. This also indicates that, as such a salt and/or a saccharide have or has to be added in a certain amount in order to prevent the decay of foods or food materials, the taste originated therefrom is also provided to the foods or food materials and as a consequence the own taste and flavor thereof might be spoiled to some extent. In this sense, such an additive including a salt, saccharide or the like cannot be added to fresh or raw food materials in order to control the water activity in the foods or food materials, as long as it is eaten in a fresh or raw state, so that the process for adding the additive to such fresh or raw foods or food materials cannot be adopted for this purpose.
Currently, only the way of storing fresh or raw foods or food materials for a certain period of time without causing decaying the foods or food materials and adding any salt, saccharide, or the like thereto is to freeze or refrigerate fresh or raw foods or food materials or keep them in cold storage. The biggest defect relating to the way of freezing or refrigerating fresh or raw foods, etc., however, resides in that the frozen or refrigerated foods etc. become dry or cause drying to whiteness or whitening or cell-decomposing particularly on the surfaces of the frozen foods or food materials during freezing or cold storage as well as that the thawing or unfreezing of the frozen foods or food materials may often spoil the taste or flavor of the thawed or unfrozen foods or food materials. In order to lessen the defect of the storage process for freezing or refrigerating such fresh or raw foods or food materials as much as possible, it is required to strictly manage conditions including temperature for freezing or refrigerating or keeping in cold storage such fresh or raw foods or food materials. The strict management of the frozen or cold storage, however, requires a large amount of expenses and labor. Moreover, even if frozen or refrigerated foods or food materials would be stored under such strictly managed conditions by using such a large amount of expenses and labor and it would be thawed carefully under strictly managed conditions, the problem may remain still unsolved that the original taste or flavor etc. of foods or food materials may be spoiled unavoidably by thawing or unfreezing the frozen or refrigerated foods or food materials.
The problem with the spoilage of the taste, flavor or the like of the thawed or unfrozen foods or food materials, however, is the issue relating to the mechanism of freezing or refrigerating foods or food materials, and the issue cannot be completely solved simply by adding an additive including preservative or the like.
In order to solve or improve the problem with the drying to whiteness or the whitening of frozen or refrigerated foods or food materials during storage by the freezing or refrigerating process, there have been used, for examples, ways of adding a variety of additives to foods or food materials or spraying a solution containing such additives thereonto or dipping them in such a solution. The storage of foods or food materials by means of the freezing or refrigerating process by using such additives, however, is not always effective and satisfactory.
Further, various attempts have been made to improve storage performance of foods or food materials by coating the foods or food materials with a proteinaceous gel including gelatin, collagen, etc. or the like and then freezing or refrigerating the coated foods or food materials. These processes can improve the storage performance of foods or food materials to some extent.
When the foods or food materials processed by freezing or refrigerating them in the above manner are thawed or unfrozen, however, the problem with the spoilage of the taste or flavor of the foods or food materials cannot be solved completely or satisfactorily.
Moreover, it is reported that, in order to improve the storage performance of foods or food materials by coating them with gelatin or the like in the above manner, a solution containing gelatin has to
Bhat Nina
Birch & Stewart Kolasch & Birch, LLP
Chisso Corporation
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