Food or edible material: processes – compositions – and products – Products per se – or processes of preparing or treating... – Gels or gelable composition
Reexamination Certificate
2002-04-08
2003-10-21
Weier, Anthony J. (Department: 1761)
Food or edible material: processes, compositions, and products
Products per se, or processes of preparing or treating...
Gels or gelable composition
C426S634000, C426S656000, C426S578000, C426S614000, C426S516000, C241S189100, C241S154000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06635301
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention broadly relates to the manufacture of edible proteinaceous products, in particular texturised protein products (TPPs) for human and/or animal consumption. In particular, the invention relates to a method and apparatus for the manufacture of fibrous meat analogue products using cooking-extrusion technology, as well as to a meat analogue product obtained by such method and apparatus.
BACKGROUND AND PRIOR ART TO THE INVENTION
The industrial manufacture of meat analogue products from protein-rich precursor materials, including plant based precursors such as cereal grain gluten (of wheat, rice, or maize; vital or with residual starch), defatted oil seed, cereal and bean flours, meals and derivatives (e.g. defatted soy flour, soy protein concentrates, wheat flour), or animal based precursors such as meat by-products obtained by mechanical separation, fish meal, dried egg white and others, alone or in combination, is nowadays well established practice. Cooking-extrusion technology is by far the most widely used one of different possible manufacturing methods to obtain such meat analogues.
The texture of such products (hereinafter also simply referred to as texturised protein products (or TPPs), whether based solely on grain or bean sourced proteins or having additional, meat-based precursors) is an especially important criteria if such product is to be used as a replacement for real meat products, as acceptance of the product, in particular if intended for human consumption, will depend on its capability to simulate existing meat as far as bite, chewiness, structure, appearance (and taste) are concerned. Whilst appearance may not seem as important where the analogue product is to be used in pet foods, either alone or mingled with real meat pieces and embedded in semi-liquid carriers (eg gravy), its structure and texture are still important factors, as these determine the suitability of the analogue product for further processing after its manufacture. For instance, the structure and texture may determine whether the analogue product may be suitable to be subjected to certain steps to obtain the end product (e.g. in retorted or hydrated form, such as in canned pet food products).
In its very basic form, manufacture of meat analogue products with a textured or fibrous structure entails the commingling of the weighted dry precursors and introducing these together with water (to obtain a desired moisture content in the mixture) into a suitable heated extruder (e.g. single or double screw extruder). Whilst passing through the extruder, which has discrete sections to perform specific mechanical operations on the mixture, the mixture is plasticised and heated to form a hot, viscous and at least partly molten mass, often referred to as a protein lava. The properties of the viscous mass at the end of the thermo-mechanical conversion process, which the precursors undergo within the extruder barrel, are dependent on the process variables (e.g. temperature in the different sections of the extruder barrel, screw speed/barrel section pressure, moisture content, precursor formulation, etc.). In order to achieve the formation of fibrous structures in the extrudate, the hot, viscous mass of proteinaceous material is pressed by the extruder screw(s) through a breaker plate having a multitude of small openings and subsequently passed through a cooling or tempering die flanged at the extruder barrel outlet opening. The cooling die is used to prevent or regulate flashing of the moisture contained in the extrudate, so as to obtain a plastically-malleable, but otherwise cohesive, non-puffed extrudate in the form of a continuous slab or ribbon of “meat analogue” product (c.f. “Better Texture for Vegetable Protein Foods”, Food Engineering International Journal, September 1976).
Extrudates prepared from defatted soy flour with moderate water content (up to 35%) using single-screw, temperature controlled extruders are slightly expanded (or puffed), easily dried, and (only to a certain extent) have structure and texture features resembling animal muscle tissue. However, it is inappropriate to call them meat analogues, as they have to be rehydrated with water and/or flavoured liquids before consumption.
High moisture extrusion-cooking and texturisation (or protein fibration) is one food technology process that has been successfully employed in recent years in fibrating protein-based formulations at high moisture content, and thus texturising “wet”, meat-like TPPs either using solely plant protein sources (cereal and oil-seed grain protein sources such as soya flour, soy protein concentrate and vital wheat gluten, in particular) and/or animal proteins such as fish flour, egg white powder, fresh meat by-products and the like. HMEC process technology, which is particularly advantageous in the context of the present invention, is described in more detail in “Extrusion cooking of high moisture protein foods”, by Akinori Noguchi in: Mercier, C., Linko, P., Harper, J. M. (ed.),
Extrusion Cooking
, 343-370, American Association of Cereal Chemists, St Paul, Minnesota, the contents of which, including that of the references cited there, are incorporated herein by way of short-hand cross reference. Further details on this technology are also described in “High moisture extrusion cooking and protein fibration”, by D. Durand, J. M Bouvier and S. Le Royer, being a paper presented during the Third Annual Smart Extrusion Seminar 1998, hosted by Food Science Australia, which was held on Aug. 31 and Sep. 1, 1998, and the references cited in that paper.
Importantly, the TPP slab or ribbon extrudate, after exiting the extruder, is generally subjected to further process steps in order to obtain the desired end product. So it is known to have specially designed forming dies at or within the cooling die and cutting devices to impart a specific shape on the extrudate to mimic actual animal or vegetable products such as seafood, chicken slices, beef chunks or slices, sausages, mushroom caps and the like. As indicated above, if the TPP extrudate is to be used in the manufacture of pet foods, for example, it is important that it can be appropriately portioned (e.g. into chunks, slices, etc.) and retain its texture and structural integrity during subsequent production steps which may include freezing, co-mingling as a meat extender with real meat (or meat by-products), filling into cans with aqueous liquids, thermal treatment, rehydration and/or retorting in case the moisture content of the TPP after extrusion is below desired values, and the like, which can adversely affect the fibrous structure of the TPP.
It is further known that the inherent aptness of a TPP extrudate to be subjected to further forming steps not only depends on the process parameters selected during extrusion in the screw-extruder and cooling in the forming die, but also the composition of the precursor mixture and water content. For example, inadequate dwell time or cooling of the extrudate within the flash expansion inhibiting cooling die may lead to a puffy consistency and texture of the TPP extrudate, which will negatively increase moisture absorption during subsequent manufacturing steps, and may render the finished product of mushy consistency, and not meat-like at all (compare for example U.S. Pat. No. 3,968,268 (Sair et al.)).
Similarly, formulation of the TPP (i.e. use of different protein-source precursors and relative proportions thereof in precursor mixtures), as well as presence of nutritional additives, flavouring and conservation agents, initial moisture contents and the like, affect the inner structure and texture of the extrudate and therefore its susceptibility to mimic specific types of meat. In other words, not all formulations will be useful where the end product to be mimicked is chicken meat or tuna flakes, and mixtures and formulations can only be exchanged to a certain extent for the same end product to be mimicked.
The present invention, in one of its aspects, aims at providing a method of manufac
Fulbright & Jaworski L.L.P.
Mars Incorporated
Weier Anthony J.
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