Food or edible material: processes – compositions – and products – Products per se – or processes of preparing or treating... – Fat or oil is basic ingredient other than butter in emulsion...
Reexamination Certificate
1996-10-18
2001-04-10
Paden, Carolyn (Department: 1761)
Food or edible material: processes, compositions, and products
Products per se, or processes of preparing or treating...
Fat or oil is basic ingredient other than butter in emulsion...
C426S417000, C554S008000, C800S281000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06214405
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is directed to peanut varieties, plants, seeds, and oils wherein the seeds and oils have improved oxidative stability, increased shelf life, and enhanced sensory qualities, having application in both food and industrial applications.
More particularly, the present invention is directed to peanut varieties, plants, seeds, and oils wherein the seeds and oils have high levels of oleic acid.
DESCRIPTION OF BACKGROUND AND RELEVANT INFORMATION
The peanut plant is produced in many countries, and is recognized as one of the major oilseed crops and as a rich source of protein. Peanuts are grown worldwide in the tropic and temperate zones, and although they are grown elsewhere primarily for the seed oil, in the United States peanuts are used mainly for human foods such as peanut butter, roasted seeds, and confections. The United States is consistently a major exporter of peanuts for human consumption. The unique roasted flavor of peanuts is the basis for most marketing of export/import peanuts. Thus, improvement of the factors that indicate and/or affect food quality of peanuts is of considerable importance to the worldwide peanut processing and manufacturing community.
The performance characteristics of a plant oil, for either dietary or industrial purposes, are substantially determined by its fatty acid profile, that is, by the species of fatty acids present in the oil and the relative and absolute amounts of each species. The type and amount of unsaturation present in a plant oil have important consequences for both dietary and industrial applications. With regard to edible peanuts, their final quality is due principally to the chemical composition of the oil, protein, and carbohydrate fractions of the seed, with the oil component playing a major role. Other factors such as kernel size, blanching characteristics, roasted flavor, and shelf life also contribute to peanut quality.
Plant oils are subject to oxidative degradation, which can cause highly undesirable changes in color and odor, as well as detract from the lubricity and viscosity characteristics of the oil. Color and odor are of particular concern in food applications, where the autoxidation of oils, and the accompanying deterioration of flavor, is referred to as rancidity. The rate of oxidation is affected by several factors, including the presence of oxygen, exposure to light and heat, and the presence of native or added antioxidants and prooxidants in the oil. However, of most pertinence to the present invention, and perhaps generally, is the type and amount of unsaturation of the fatty acids in the oil.
By way of one example, peanut butter consists of a mixture of solid nut particles and liquid peanut oil. It is generally made by roasting and blanching raw peanut kernels, followed by grinding. The grinding operation breaks the cellular structure of the peanut kernels and liberates oil; the comminuted nut particles are suspended in this oil to form a product having a pasty and spreadable consistency.
An unavoidable side effect of the processing, and particularly the grinding, is the introduction of oxygen into the peanut butter. The presence of this oxygen promotes the development of rancidity; the oxygen oxidizes the peanut oil, causing the peanut butter to develop an undesirable taste and/or odor during prolonged storage, thereby reducing the useful shelf life of the peanut butter.
The fatty acids present in the peanut oil are not equally vulnerable to oxidation. Rather, the susceptibility of individual fatty acids to oxidation is dependent on their degree of unsaturation. Thus, the rate of oxidation of linolenic acid, which possesses three carbon—carbon double bonds, is 25-100 times that of oleic acid, which has only one double bond, and 2-10 times that of linoleic acid, which has two. Schultz, E. A Day and R. O. Sinnhuber,
Symposium on Food Lipids and Their Oxidation
, AVI Publishing Co., Inc., London, England (1962). Linoleic and linolenic acids also have the most impact on flavor and odor because they readily form hydroperoxides. While saturated fatty acids are the most stable from the viewpoint of rancidity, they are highly undesirable from a health and nutrition viewpoint Therefore, monounsaturated fatty acids present the best combination of nutritive and oxidative stability characteristics.
Resistance to oxidation can also have an important benefit before the peanut is crushed for oil or incorporated into a food product There appears to be a correlation between susceptibility to oxidation and the formation of aflatoxin, an extremely undesirable contaminant which can result from the growth of certain molds. It has been reported that lipoperoxidation of the unsaturated fatty acids—particularly linolenic acid—in sunflower seeds appears to be involved in aflatoxin biosynthesis. Passi et al., “Role of lipoperoxidation in aflatoxin production,”
Applied Microbiology
Biotechnology, pp. 186-190 (1984); Fanelli et al., ‘Free radical and aflatoxin biosynthesis,”
Experientia
, 40:191-193 (1984). Therefore, peanuts whose oil contents are resistant to oxidation should also be resistant to aflatoxin formation.
The botanical classification of peanuts is subject to some apparent ambiguity, with sub-divisions being variously referred to as varieties, subvarieties, subspecies, classes, and types. Thus, commercial peanuts can be divided into at least two main botanical classes, Virginia and Spanish, and possibly a third, Valencia (Norden et al., “Breeding of the Cultivated Peanut,”
Peanut Science and Technology
, Ch. 4, pp. 95-121 (1982). Some sources use a different third main class, Runner (
Peanuts: Production, Processing, Products
, ch. 4, “The Culture of Peanuts,” pp. 41 et seq., Woodroof, ed. (3d ed. 1983), while others appear to treat Runner as a sub-class of Virginia (Wynne et al., “Peanut Breeding,”
Advances in Agronomy
, 34:39-72 (1981). (It appears that some of the apparent confusion may result from the use of overlapping nomenclature in taxonomic and commercial naming systems.) For purposes of the present discussion, Runner will be treated as a sub-class derived from the Virginia botanical class of peanut
Virginia botanical types do not flower on the main stem and, in general terms, mature later, have a high water requirement, and are large-seeded. Spanish botanical types flower only on the main stem and, relative to Virginia types, mature earlier, have a lower water requirement, and have smaller seed.
Virginia peanuts are the more desirable for comestible applications, due to their generally superior size, texture, and taste compared to Spanish peanuts. In addition, oil from seeds of the different botanical types of peanuts differ in their tendency to develop oxidative rancidity and its associated undesirable odors and flavors. Virginia-type peanuts produce oil with a lower linoleic percentage, and therefore tend to have greater stability than Spanish types. Moreover, Virginia type peanut plants are superior to Spanish in several agronomic characteristics, including drought resistance, disease and pest resistance, and susceptibility to pod splitting.
In general, the genetic range of fatty acid compositions in peanuts is 41-67% oleic acid and 14-42% linoleic. O'Keefe et al., “Comparison of Oxidative Stability of High- and Normal-Oleic Peanut Oils,”
J. Am. Oil Chem. Soc
., 70:489-492 (1993), referencing Ahmed et al.,
Peanut Science and Technology
, pp. 655-688 (1982). The Runner sub-class of Virginia-type peanut is the basis for the most widely used commercial peanut varieties in the United States, due to its excellent agronomic characteristics. A recent survey of Runner-type peanuts reported an oleic acid content range of 49.6-56.3%, and a linoleic acid content range of 24.1-30.6%. Branch et el.,
J. Am. Oil Chem. Soc
., 67:591 (1990).
One widely used commercial variety of the Runner sub-class is Florunner, which was introduced in the United States in 1969 as commercial runner type peanut derived from a cross between the varieties Early Runner and Florispan. Floru
Eikenberry Eric Jon
Horn Michael Eugene
Lanuza Juan Enrique Romero
Sutton James Douglas
Agrigenetics Inc.
Paden Carolyn
Saliwanchik Lloyd & Saliwanchik
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