Food or edible material: processes – compositions – and products – Products per se – or processes of preparing or treating... – Noncarbohydrate sweetener or composition containing same
Reexamination Certificate
1999-01-15
2001-06-26
Wong, Leslie (Department: 1761)
Food or edible material: processes, compositions, and products
Products per se, or processes of preparing or treating...
Noncarbohydrate sweetener or composition containing same
C426S002000, C426S471000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06251464
ABSTRACT:
The present invention relates to a powdered sweetener composition for animal feed and is particularly useful for preparing feed for young bred animals, e.g. piglets, calves and lambs.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Traditionally, powdered sweeteners for animal feed are composed of a statistical mixture of two powders with very different particle sizes, i.e. a sweetening powder with a relatively coarse particle size and mixed with a potentiator in the form of a much finer powder. The sweetener, i.e. the agent bringing the sweet flavor is usually saccharine or sodium or calcium saccharinate, or sometimes other natural or artificial intense sweeteners.
The potentiator has a double role. Firstly, as its name indicates, it has the effect of extending the perception of the sweet flavor which, in its absence, would be too short. A good potentiator, as those classically used, allows an increase of the sweet perception time by approximately 50 to 80%. The other effect of the potentiator, and not the least, is to hide the secondary or parasitic tastes of the sweetener, e.g. the bitter, metallic taste of saccharine or its sodium or calcium salts.
For practical reasons of the disclosure and for a better understanding of the problem set herein, we hereinafter refer more particularly to the feeding of piglets, although the invention applies to other young reared animals such as young bovines, sheep, goats, horses, deer, etc.
For piglets, the consumption must be optimal during the weaning time, in order to ease the transition from maternal milk to solid feed. This phase brings an increased vulnerability for the piglets' health and, to prevent disease risks, the feed is sometimes supplemented with repulsive-tasting medicinal products. This is intended to stimulate its appetite so that it eats the maximum feed, by serving rations containing sweeteners, the young animal being especially fond of the sweet flavor it was used to with its mother's milk. For instance, a weaned 28 day old piglet weighing 6.5 to 8 kg, eats 200 to 300 g per day of food, usually in granulated form. A piglet absorbs with each mouthful approximately 8 g, that is some fifty granules, which is very little. But, as from the age of 8 days, the piglet is already given granulated feed under the mother for it to get used to its future diet. It only eats 30 to 40 g per day, which represents only some ten granules per mouthful. With or without medical supplementation, its appetite is stimulated by proposing tasty food and this is why it has become usual to give granules with incorporated sweeteners. These granules, weighing about 0.15 g with a mean diameter of 0.3 cm and a length of 1.5 cm, are composed of a sweetener in an amount of approximately ¼ by weight dispersed on a support, of approximately ¾ by weight, which can be dextrose silica, ground cereals or combinations thereof. The proportion of saccharine to the potentiator is in the order of 100 to 1-2 and approximately 400 g/t (gram per metric ton) of this mixture is added to the final food.
In order to avoid any ambiguity, in the terminology used hereinafter the word “sweetener” shall be used to designate the sweetener/potentiator mix, object of the invention, as well as traditional corresponding products which will serve as comparison, whereas the expression “sweetening formulation” or “sweetening premix” shall be used when the sweetener proper is dispersed in a support. This sweetening formulation, which in a way is a seasoning like salt or pepper for human foods, will then be incorporated into the final feed given to the piglet.
Traditional sweeteners are statistical mixtures of one or more sweeteners and of one or more potentiators which have, as stated before, very different particle sizes. In spite of the care which can be brought to their realization, this can only result in mixtures with a great heterogeneity. They will therefore be named hereafter “coarse sweeteners”.
This great inhomogeneity, conjugated with the absorption by the piglet of a very reduced number of granules per mouthful, leads to the effect felt by the young animal possibly being very different from one mouthful to another (and leading to variations of consumption): one mouthful can have a hardly-perceptible sweet taste, whereas the following mouthful can be too sweet or event bitter and metallic because of difficulties to hide the aftertaste of the saccharine, in spite of the potentiator, when it is too concentrated. Traditional sweetening formulations, based on coarse sweeteners, although widely used in rearing for lack of better, only give moderate satisfaction.
Generally, questions linked to the use of sweeteners in animal feed are curiously infrequent in the literature and we will quote for example the disclosure of DE-2 029 749 which has no relation to the object of the present invention, because it concerns a nutrient formed of a layer of sweetening substance and containing assimilable iron.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The problems evoked hereinabove are solved by the invention, in a surprisingly simple way, the invention consisting in proposing a powdered sweetener for animal feed in the form of an intimate mixture with a substantially uniform, non-statistical sweetener/potentiator distribution, and wherein the proportion of sweetener to potentiator is substantially constant in all particles.
Preferably, the powdered sweetener according to the invention has a particle size comprised between 10 and 100 &mgr;m, with a Gaussian distribution. Preferably too, the proportion sweetener/potentiator(s) is comprised between 100/0.2 and 100/2, expressed in parts by weight.
As indicated above and as will be seen below, because the proportion of potentiator to sweetener is substantially constant and equal from one particle to the other, it will be constant from one granule to the other in the sweetening formulation wherein the sweetener is dispersed in a support, and finally in the food given to the animal.
It shall be easily be understood, in these conditions, that the appetite of the piglet will be all the more stimulated as it will be given the constant sweet taste it wants, with a constant intensity and profile, without variation from one mouthful to another.
The purpose is of course to enhance the economic efficiency of the young reared animal, allowing a faster and more regular weight increase, comparable for all animals.
The young animal, placed in front of the sweetener according to the invention, will eat with a better appetite, and thus more or less efficiently, and will thus gain more weight than a young animal placed in front of a formulation comprising a coarse sweetener with an identical composition. It will result in less wastage, and as will be seen hereunder, it will allow use of less sweetener in the granules, the sweetening powder being generally in the form of a finer powder than the traditional coarse sweetener.
Indeed this is one of the preferred embodiments according to the invention, the sweetener according to the invention can be presented as a powder with a Gaussian distribution and a mean particle diameter comprised between 10 and 100 &mgr;m, comprising between 65,000,000 and 85,000,000, for example around 75,000,000 particles per gram, compared to saccharine of 40-80 mesh having a particle size comprised between 100 and 1000 &mgr;m and comprising only 50,000 to 70,000, with a mean of 60,000 particles per gram.
An economy shall thus be made both through a better regularity of the feed of the young animal and due to the fact that according to the invention the wanted sweet taste can be brought to the granules and to the final feed using less sweetener.
Sodium or calcium saccharinate and saccharine already quoted can be used as sweeteners, as well as other sweeteners like aspartylphenylalanine, acesulfam and cyclamates and stevioside which is a glycoside of natural origin.
As potentiators, the piglet feed can use thaumatin, which is a protein of vegetable origin, and glycosides such as neohesperidine dihydrochalcone (NHDC), glycyrrhizin, etc., alone or mixture
Doan Kim Son
Felisaz Denis
Henderson & Sturm LLP
Pancosma Societe Anonyme pour l'Industrie des Produits Bioc
Wong Leslie
LandOfFree
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