Food or edible material: processes – compositions – and products – Products per se – or processes of preparing or treating... – Plant material is basic ingredient other than extract,...
Reexamination Certificate
2001-03-08
2003-07-29
Pratt, Helen (Department: 1761)
Food or edible material: processes, compositions, and products
Products per se, or processes of preparing or treating...
Plant material is basic ingredient other than extract,...
C426S519000, C426S521000, C426S577000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06599555
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates, generally, to the field of reduced-calorie fruit and vegetable spread products and, in its preferred embodiments, to a process for making, or preparing, a reduced-calorie, natural, whole-fruit and/or vegetable spread product fortified with dietary fiber.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Many individuals apply fruit or vegetable spreads, such as jams, jellies, purees and preserves, to other food products in order to enhance the flavor and nutritional value of the other food products with the taste and nutritional content of the fruit or vegetable spreads. Such fruit or vegetable spreads, generally, include a fruit or vegetable ingredient and a saccharide ingredient, but may also contain nutritive carbohydrate sweeteners, spice, acidifying agents, pectin (i.e., in an amount sufficient to compensate for natural deficiency in fruit or vegetable), buffering and antifoaming agents, preservatives, and other ingredients or agents for improving or preserving their taste, nutritional value, and quality. The saccharide ingredient in jams, jellies and preserves is typically sugar, which provides sweetening, bulk, texture, and mouth feel. The sugar also reduces the water activity level, thereby reducing pathogen growth.
Typically, the preparation of jams, jellies, purees and preserves comprises a number of steps. Initially, fruit ingredients, sweeteners and water are blended together. A stabilizing solution, such as pectin, is then prepared and added to the fruit, sweetener, and water blend to produce a mixture. During subsequent cooking of the mixture, unwanted water is evaporated to create a cooked mixture having a desired soluble solids content. Finally, the cooked mixture is placed in suitable receptacles, such as jars, through a hot-filling process. Unfortunately, the steps of cooking and evaporation cause the fruit spread to lose flavor intensity (i.e., through boiling-off), texture (i.e., through breakdown of the fruit fibers into mush), natural color (i.e., through darkening or oxidation), and nutrients (i.e., through boiling-off).
Various inventors have attempted to resolve the above-described problems, deficiencies or difficulties with fruit spreads and the manufacture thereof. For instance, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,190,785, Oelsner discloses a process for evaporating the water from a fruit-based product while attempting to preserve flavor. Oelsner's method includes removing portions of fruit and glucose syrup from a mixture of these components with sugar. The removed portions and the remaining mixture are then separately boiled to evaporate the water from each. The removed portions are boiled in an open vat, while the remaining mixture is boiled in a closed cooking vat. After recombining the boiled mixtures, the product is pasteurized and packaged, but as noted in the Oelsner patent, evaporation of the excess water results in flavor loss.
Other inventors and manufacturers, in response to studies indicating that excessive amounts of sugar in food products may contribute to or exacerbate many health problems and to the resultant desire among consumers for low-sugar fruit spreads, have attempted to enhance the healthiness of fruit spreads by employing sugar substitutes to produce low-calorie, low-sugar products. However, as described below, such sugar substitutes and processes for making fruit spreads which incorporate them, tend to create fruit spreads having various difficulties, including those described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,397,588. In that patent, Antenucci discloses that artificially Is flavored fruit spreads are deficient in sensory (sweetness intensity, quality and flavor), visual (color, clarity and gloss), and textural (firmness, body, mouth feel, and spreadability) properties as compared to their naturally sweetened counterparts. Antenucci, attempting to resolve such deficiencies, incorporated a multi-component gum system to impart desirable textural properties to pectin or carrageenan gel, but utilized the conventional method of fruit spread preparation described above and, as a result of the cooking step, produced a fruit spread deficient in flavor.
In a somewhat different approach to improving the texture of low-calorie fruit spreads disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,260,083, Brain incorporated a fat replacement ingredient into a fruit spread rather than using a reduced-calorie sweetener. By using the fat replacement as an additive in a generally fat-free food, Brain was able to simulate the texture and lubricity of fat in a fruit spread product. However, the fruit spread required the creation of a microparticulated mixture which destroyed the natural texture of the spread's fruit. Also, unfortunately, use of the fat replacement ingredient actually resulted in a higher calorie product, while cooking of the mixture caused the loss of some of the natural flavor of the spread's fruit.
Still other inventors and manufacturers have attempted to produce jams, jellies and other fruit-based products with a reduced caloric content by substituting oligofructose and/or inulin in place of some of the sugar, while taking advantage of the known bulking properties of such fructans. Unfortunately, because the above-described cooking process for producing jams and jellies tends to degrade the oligofructose and/or inulin at high temperatures and low pH, and because the shelf-life of products containing oligofructose may be inadequate, these attempts have proven difficult. In an attempt to extend the shelf-life of products containing oligofructose, pasteurization processes have been used, even though it is known that the pasteurization conditions may cause the oligofructose to degrade and, hence, be detrimental to the quality of the products. Verschuren, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,468,512, addressed the difficulties associated with the pasteurization of products made with oligofructoses and sets forth specific conditions (i.e., the oligofructoses are heated in a very narrow range of temperature from 72 degrees to 82 degrees Celsius for a period of 10 to 300 seconds) for the successful pasteurization of such products. However, according to the disclosure of Verschuren, the texture of inulin is destroyed at temperatures higher than 82 degrees Celsius.
Finally, still other inventors and manufacturers have attempted to resolve the, as yet undiscussed, problem of microbiological contamination which may occur during the preparation of fruit spreads. To reduce the likelihood of microbiological contamination, Waredorf determined that a water-based jelly product having whole fruit pieces may be hot-filled into appropriate receptacles following a pasteurization process to kill off microbes. In U.S. Pat. No. 6,183,801, Waredorf discloses that microbiological contamination may be overcome by hot-filling receptacles at a temperature above 70 degrees Celsius. According to the Waredorf process, the form of the water-based jelly may be maintained during the heating process by the addition of a thickener, xanthan, and a gelling agent, including inulin, to the water-based jelly. After pasteurization of the water-based jelly, whole fruit is injected into the pasteurized jelly product just prior to hot-filling. Unfortunately, because the fruit must be stable against processing stress, certain varieties, especially berry varieties, of fruit cannot be used in fruit spread products made with the Waredorf process. Moreover, fruit spread products made with the Waredorf process have, or tend to have, a texture similar to that of gelatin desserts (e.g., JELL-O®), which are very watery and not suitable for spreading, for instance, on toast. Further, even at refrigerated temperatures, fruit spread products prepared using the Waredorf process have an extremely short shelf-life.
Therefore, there exists in the industry, a need for a process for making a reduced-calorie, natural, whole-fruit and/or vegetable spread with an adequate shelf-life which does not diminish the natural flavor, texture, color, or nutritional content of the fruit(s) and/or vegetable(s) therein, and for
BocaBear Foods, Inc.
Coursey R. Stevan
Haley Jacqueline
Pratt Helen
Troutman Sanders LLP
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