Food or edible material: processes – compositions – and products – Dormant ferment containing product – or live microorganism...
Reexamination Certificate
1999-02-22
2001-03-13
Hendricks, Keith D. (Department: 1761)
Food or edible material: processes, compositions, and products
Dormant ferment containing product, or live microorganism...
C042S130000, C042S130000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06200609
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to preparation of a composition containing a dehydrated food composition and live probiotic lactic acid bacteria and particularly to dehydration, and more particularly to dehydration by spray-drying, of a probiotic lactic acid bacteria culture and a food composition for preparation of the dehydrated composition.
The subject of the invention is a new process for the preparation of a dehydrated food composition containing live lactic acid bacteria.
To dry lactic acid bacteria, industry needs to have available processes which are easy to use and which are economical. Spray-drying generally consists in spraying a suspension of lactic acid bacteria in a vessel and under a stream of hot air, the vessel comprising, to this effect, a hot air inlet, an outlet for discharging the air and an outlet for recovering the powder of dried lactic acid bacteria.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,897,307 (Porubcan et al.) describes a process for the preparation of a dehydrated milk-containing food composition comprising live lactic acid bacteria. In this process, the milk is fermented by lactic acid bacteria, ascorbic acid and sodium glutamate are added thereto and then the fermented milk is spray-dried under a stream of hot air. Other methods of preparation of spray-dried fermented milk-containing compositions are also described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,985,901 (C. G. Barberan), IE65390 (Charleville Research Ltd), SU724113 (Kiev Bacterial Prep.) and SU 1,097,253 (Protsishin et al.), for example.
NL 7,413,373 (DSO Pharmachim) describes the preparation of a soya bean-based food composition comprising live lactic acid bacteria, the composition being spray-dried under a stream of hot air.
Likewise, J73008830 (Tokyo Yakult Seizo) describes the preparation of food compositions based on tomato or soya bean and comprising live bacteria or yeasts, the compositions being spray-dried under a stream of hot air.
When a culture of lactic acid bacteria is spray-dried, the sprayed culture is generally subjected to a stream of hot air having a temperature of the order of 100° C. to 180° C., depending on the devices. The drying temperature poses, nonetheless, a few problems. U.S. Pat. No. 3,985,901 (C. G. Barberan) shows indeed that a drying temperature on the order of 180° C. to 300° C. is capable of killing all the live organisms. These observations were also confirmed in EP298605 (Unilever: page 2, lines 43-48), and EP63438 (Scottish Milk Marke: page 1, lines 14-21).
To remedy the destructive influence of the drying temperature, the culture of lactic acid bacteria is generally mixed with protective agents such as vitamins, amino acids, proteins, sugars and/or fats, for example. Unfortunately, the influence of temperature still remains predominant. Only the lactic acid bacteria which are naturally resistant to high temperatures survive a spray-drying sufficiently to make the process economically attractive.
In all the preceding documents, one stream of product is subjected to the spray-drying. There is another way to proceed, which consists in spray-drying conjointly two streams; on one side, the food composition stream and on the other side, the probiotic lactic acid stream. This is the case for disclosures of French Pat. No. 712,791, Swiss Pat. No. 572 568 and U.S. Pat. No. 2,127,524. In these documents, the air inlet temperature never exceeds 100° C., so that there is no problem of survival of the bacteria present.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention aims to overcome the disadvantages of the prior art by providing a process for drying lactic acid bacteria which is particularly suited to the survival of probiotic lactic acid bacteria, which are moreover known to be particularly sensitive to oxygen and/or heat.
To this effect, the present invention provides a process for drying a food composition in which a food composition and a culture of probiotic lactic acid bacteria are sprayed separately one from the other (described in the remainder of this specification as being sprayed “conjointly” or as being “co-sprayed”) under a stream of hot air and in which a dehydrated food composition containing live probiotic lactic acid bacteria is recovered. Further in carrying out the present invention, the culture of lactic acid bacteria and the food composition are sprayed in a spray-drying device with at least two nozzles having a heated air inlet temperature of between 100° C. and 400° C. and an air outlet temperature of between 40° C. and 90° C., the residence time of the lactic acid bacteria in the device being adjusted so as to obtain at least 1% survival of the lactic acid bacteria after drying.
It is found, surprisingly, that the survival of the lactic acid bacteria is substantially improvided when a culture of lactic acid bacteria and another food composition are spray-dried by spraying them separately at the same time and in the same vessel.
Furthermore, it has been observed that acceptable survival of the lactic acid bacteria can be obtained when a culture of lactic acid bacteria and a food composition are dried conjointly in a spray-drying device having an air inlet temperature greater than 200-300° C. It has indeed been observed that depending on the residence time of the droplets in the drying device, the internal temperature of the droplets may not exceed about 40-70° C., because of the cooling caused by the evaporation of water.
DETAILED DESCRIPTIONS OF THE INVENTION
To carry out the present process, a culture of one or more species of probiotic lactic acid bacteria is prepared. Persons skilled in the art are capable of selecting the culture medium which is best suited to the growth of these lactic acid bacteria.
These probiotic lactic acid bacteria may be chosen from the species
Lactococcus lactis
, in particular
L. lactis
subsp.
cremoris
and
L. lactic
subsp.
lactis biovar diacetylactis: Streptococcus thermophilus
; the group of acidophilic bacteria consisting of
Lactobacillus acidophilus, Lactobacilus crispatus, Lactobacillus amylovorous, Lactobacillus gallinarum, Lactobacillus gasseri
and
Lactobacillus johnsonii; Lactobacillus brevis; Lactobacillus fermentum; Lactobacillus plantarum; Lactobacillus helveticus; Lactobacillus casei
in particular
L. casei
subsp.
casei
and
L. casei
subsp.
rhamnosus; Lactobacillus delbruckii
in particular
L. delbruckii
subsp.
lactis, and
L. delbruckii l subsp.
bulgaricus
; the bifidobacteria in particular
bifidobacterium infantis, Bifidobacterium breve, Bifidobacterium longum
; and finally
Leuconostoc mesenteroides
in particular
L. mesenteroides
subsp.
cremoris
, for example (Bergey's Manual of Systematic Bacteriology, Vol. 2, 1986; Fujisawa et al., Int. Syst. Bact, 42, 487-491, 1992).
However, these probiotic lactic acid bacteria should have the following properties, namely the capacity to adhere to human intestinal cells, to exclude pathogenic bacteria on human intestinal cells, and/or to act on the human immune system by allowing it react more strongly to external aggression (immunomodulatory capacity), for example by increasing the phagocytosis capacities of the granulocytes derived from human blood (J. of Dairy Science, 78, 491-197, 1995; immunomodulatory capacity of the strain La-1 which has been deposited under the treaty of Budapest at the Collection Nationale de Culture de Microorganisme (CNCM), 25 rue due docteur Roux, 75724 Paris, where it was attributed the deposit number CNCM I-1225).
By way of example, the probiotic strain
Lactobacillus acidophilus
CNCM I-1225 described in EP577904 can be used. This strain was recently reclassified among the
Lactobacillus johnsonii
strain, following the new taxonomy, proposed by Fujisawa et al., which is now authoritative as regards the taxonomy of acidophilic lactobacilli (Int. J. Syst. Bact., 42, 487-791, 1992). Other probiotic bacteria are also available, such as those described in EP199535 (Gorback et al.), U.S. Pat. No. 5,296,221 (Mitsuoka et al.), U.S. Pat. No. 556,785 (Institut Pasteur), or U.S. Pat. No. 5,591,428 (Probi AB), for example.
Meister Niklaus
Sutter Andreas
Vikas Martin
Hendricks Keith D.
Nestec S.A.
Vogt & O'Donnell, LLP
LandOfFree
Process for obtaining a dehydrated food composition... does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Process for obtaining a dehydrated food composition..., we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Process for obtaining a dehydrated food composition... will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2523542