Food or edible material: processes – compositions – and products – Product with added plural inorganic mineral or element...
Patent
1997-09-08
1999-02-09
Pratt, Helen
Food or edible material: processes, compositions, and products
Product with added plural inorganic mineral or element...
426590, 426594, 426597, 426599, 426616, A23F 320, A23F 522, A23L 1304
Patent
active
058691197
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates to foods and beverages, and particularly to methods of increasing the pH of acidic foods and beverages to ameliorate heartburn and other ill-effects attendant eating and ingesting such foodstuffs. The invention provides ingestible compositions having reduced acidity, and packages useful in preparing the compositions.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Most people enjoy eating and drinking acidic foods and beverages (referred to generically herein as "food" or "foods"), where pizza, coffee and wine are common examples of popular acidic foods. However, for some people, the ingestion of acidic foods has undesirable consequences. For example, the acid in acidic food such as wine is perceived as a sharp taste, or bite, when that food is taken into a consumer's mouth. For some people, acidic food has too much bite, and thus is less palatable than would be preferred. Also, some people suffer from heartburn after ingesting even moderate amounts of acidic food. A problem attendant to ingesting large quantities of acidic food, including acid-based medicines, is that the consumer's stomach may reach dangerously low pH levels over an extended period of time, because of the sheer quantity of exogenous acid ingested, and this can lead to ulcers or other gastrointestinal and esophageal tract ailments.
According to one medical dictionary, heartburn is an esophageal symptom consisting of a retrosternal sensation of warmth or burning occurring in waves and tending to rise upward toward the neck. It may take the form of water brash, where water brash is heartburn including regurgitation of sour fluid or almost tasteless saliva into the mouth. See Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary, 28th Edition, 1994 (W. B. Saunders Co.). When people develop heartburn, they may ingest antacids, that are available over-the-counter, to help neutralize the stomach acid.
For some people, heartburn is the almost inevitable consequence of ingesting certain food, and particularly acidic food. Thus, for some people, drinking coffee inevitably gives rise to heartburn. At present, these particular people must either forego drinking coffee, drink coffee substitutes, suffer from the effects of heartburn, or resort to treating the effects of heartburn by, e.g., medication. None of these options is particularly satisfactory to people who like to drink coffee and ingest other acidic food, but who are particularly susceptible to ill-effects attendant to a decrease in the pH of the stomach.
While the prior art has given much attention to the treatment of heartburn and other ill-effects caused by eating acidic foods, little attention has heretofore been given to developing methods and compositions that reduce the incidence of the problems and unwanted effects caused by eating acidic food. For example, little attention has been given to providing a milder taste for acidic foods, or to preventing the formation of heartburn and other esophageal and/or gastrointestinal distress caused by ingesting acidic foods. There exists a great but unmet need for a method to treat acidic foods so as to make them more palatable, and to reduce or eliminate their tendency to give rise to heartburn and other conditions caused by an excess of acidity in the stomach of a consumer.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention provides a method of increasing the pH of acidic foods and acidic beverages. The method comprises combining calcium glycerophosphate with an acidic food or an acidic beverage. The amount of calcium glycerophosphate to be used is an amount effective to increase the pH of the acidic food or acidic beverage to a level such that, when a consumer ingests the combination of calcium glycerophosphate and acidic food or acidic beverage, the consumer will experience less heartburn and other esophageal and/or gastrointestinal distress than if the acidic food or acidic beverage had been ingested without the calcium glycerophosphate.
Another aspect of the invention is a method of reducing heartburn and other esophageal an
REFERENCES:
patent: 2036345 (1936-04-01), Merkel
patent: 3061442 (1962-10-01), Ward
patent: 5202145 (1993-04-01), Wisler et al.
patent: 5665415 (1997-09-01), Kligerman et al.
Hartzell Sarah
Kligerman Alan E.
Akpharma Inc.
Pratt Helen
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