Food or edible material: processes – compositions – and products – Products per se – or processes of preparing or treating... – Protein – amino acid – or yeast containing
Reexamination Certificate
2001-01-08
2004-01-27
Tran, Lien (Department: 1761)
Food or edible material: processes, compositions, and products
Products per se, or processes of preparing or treating...
Protein, amino acid, or yeast containing
C426S451000, C426S557000, C426S653000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06682769
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a noodle loosening promoter and a method for its production, as well as to a method for promoting loosening of noodles. The term “noodles” will be used throughout in a wide sense to include pastas, Japanese noodles, Chinese noodles and the like.
2. Description of the Related Art
Boiled noodles, steamed noodles and LL noodles are marketed in a great variety of forms through heating steps such as boiling or steaming for pregelatinization, and they are usually not consumed immediately after cooking but are first stored and then eaten upon pouring broth over them or after further cooking. Of the vast majority of these various product forms, however, noodle strands that are pregelatinized and gelatinized tend to bind tightly together as time passes, such that the noodles fail to loosen during the recooking procedure which involves removal from the package wrapping, heating, etc. for their consumption, thus creating problems such as eating difficulty, loss of taste and flavor, poor outer appearance, etc.
Methods have existed in the prior art that are intended to solve these problems, such as methods of spraying with or immersion in edible oils and fats, emulsifiers and water-soluble polysaccharides. By applying methods using edible oils or fats (such as Japanese Examined Patent Publication No. 57-8705) which utilize the mutually immiscible nature of oil and water, it is possible to promote the loosening of noodles to a slight extent, but large amounts of the oils and fats are necessary in order to completely inhibit cohesion of the noodle strands and obtain a satisfactory loosened state, and this has resulted in an oily condition and a loss of taste and pleasant feel in the mouth, while the oils and fats also float on the soup or broth and are oxidized, producing a dull color on the noodles. With time, the oils also permeate into the noodles and gradually reduce the intended loosening effect on the noodle surfaces.
With methods using emulsifiers (such as Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 10-215802) it is possible to exhibit a loosening effect with smaller addition amounts than with oils and fats, since emulsifiers have better water dispersion properties, but a resulting problem is that the undesirable flavors of the emulsifiers remain until the noodles are finally consumed.
Methods using water-soluble polysaccharides (such as Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 6-121647) can also exhibit a loosening effect with smaller addition amounts than with oils and fats due to higher water-solubility, while the effect on flavor is also minimal; these are currently considered to be the most suitable as noodle loosening promoters, but they still give unsatisfactory results compared to the loosened feel of freshly prepared noodles.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the present invention to provide noodle loosening promoters with a more notable effect compared to methods of the prior art, to a method for their production and to a method of promoting loosening of noodles.
In the course of conducting diligent research on the subject described above, the present inventors have discovered, quite by accident, that it is possible to achieve a vast improvement in the loosening property of noodles by combining water-soluble polysaccharides with enzymolysis products of proteins. The present invention has been completed on the basis of this discovery.
Specifically, the invention provides a noodle loosening promoter comprising a water-soluble polysaccharide and a protein enzymolysis product as active ingredients, as well as a method for production of a noodle loosening promoter comprising mixing a protein enzymolysis product with a water-soluble polysaccharide.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
Water-soluble polysaccharides can be water-extracted from polysaccharide-containing raw materials, and in some cases eluted by heating under acidic or alkaline conditions. They can also be eluted by decomposition with certain enzymes.
Specifically, the polysaccharide-containing raw materials that may be used include plant materials, such as husks of oily seeds of, for example soybean, palm, coconut, corn, cottonseed, etc. with the oil and protein removed, or the bran or refuse of grains, for example rice or wheat, or beets, from which the starch and sugars have been removed.
A water-soluble polysaccharide of the invention is preferably derived from beans, particularly soybeans, and preferably from the cotyledon thereof, and okara (bean-curd refuse), a by-product from preparation of tofu (bean curd) and soybean milk or separated soybean protein may be used.
The following is an example of a method of producing water-soluble polysaccharides. Specifically, the starting materials may be subjected to thermolytic treatment at a temperature preferably of from 80° C. to 130° C., and more preferably from 100° C. to 130° C., under either acidic or alkaline conditions but preferably at a pH near the isoelectric point of each protein, and after separation of the water-soluble fraction, it may be dried directly or preferably subjected to activated carbon treatment, resin adsorption treatment or ethanol precipitation to remove the hydrophobic substances or low molecular substances, and then dried to yield the desired water-soluble polysaccharides.
Water-soluble polysaccharides of any molecular weight may be used, but those with an average molecular weight of a few ten thousand to a few million, and especially from 50,000 to one million, are preferred.
A water-soluble polysaccharide used for the invention may also be gum arabic, tragacanth gum, carrageenan, xanthan gum, guar gum, guar gum enzymolysate, pectin, pullulan, gelan gum, locust bean gum, any of various starches or processed starches including soluble starches, or their hydrolysates.
The protein used as the starting material for the protein enzymolysis product may be plant-derived such as soybean or wheat or animal-derived such as egg white or milk, and any of these may be used alone or in combinations. Soybean is particularly preferred as a starting material because it contains abundant water-soluble polysaccharides and proteins.
Protein decomposing enzymes which may be used include proteases such as proteinases and peptidases, and specifically either endo or exo types such as pepsin, trypsin, papain, subtilisin, bromelain, etc., either alone or in combinations. The proteins are decomposed by using these enzymes under their respective optimum conditions (of temperature, pH and time), and proteins of high molecular weight are preferably digested by the enzymolysis to the level of peptides or amino acids.
Production of a noodle loosening promoter according to the invention requires mixture of the protein enzymolysis product with the water-soluble polysaccharide, and because protein is included in the crude polysaccharide extract obtained by production of the water-soluble polysaccharide, the mixing method may simply involve allowing the protease to act on the crude extract to obtain the active ingredient as a highly efficient noodle loosening promoter. Commercially available peptides or amino acids may, of course, be added and mixed with the water-soluble polysaccharide to produce the noodle loosening promoter.
The noodle loosening promoter of the invention exhibits an excellent noodle loosening effect with only the water-soluble polysaccharide and protein enzymolysis product as active ingredients, but enhanced manageability, storage properties and appearance for practical use can be achieved by combination with various water-soluble polymers that are suitable for use in existing food products, as well as sugars, sugar alcohols, fats and oils, emulsifiers, dispersing agents, acids, salts, perfumes and a variety of extracts.
As water-soluble polymers that are suitable for use in existing food products there may be mentioned, in addition to gum arabic, tragacanth gum, carrageenan, xanthan gum, guar gum, guar gum enzymolysate, pectin, pullulan, gelan gum, locu
Fuji Oil Co., Ltd.
Paul & Paul
Tran Lien
LandOfFree
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