Food or edible material: processes – compositions – and products – Fermentation processes – Of plant or plant derived material
Reexamination Certificate
1999-08-25
2001-01-16
Weier, Anthony J. (Department: 1761)
Food or edible material: processes, compositions, and products
Fermentation processes
Of plant or plant derived material
C426S054000, C426S055000, C426S059000, C426S443000, C426S657000, C426S807000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06174551
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates generally to a process for preparing a nutritional supplement and more specifically, a nutritional supplement designed to provide the desired amino acids and essential nutrients to promote the growth of young animals.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Food additives are substances that may be added to foods during processing in order to improve desirable chemical or physical characteristics and food quality. One of the most important forms of food additives are nutritional supplements. These typically comprise proteins, minerals and vitamins that are added to foods in order to restore nutritional values lost during food processing or to supplement the natural content of the food nutrients. The importance of the use of nutritional supplements to enhance the health and growth of farm animals has long been recognized in the field of animal husbandry.
It has also long been recognized that the production of nutritional supplements from various by-products of food rendering operations is highly desirable. Specifically, by establishing a commercial use for these by-products, the economic viability of the food rendering process is enhanced and otherwise difficult waste material handling is reduced or altogether avoided. This is a particularly important concept for the poultry rendering industry where significant amounts of waste materials are produced. Accordingly, various methods have been developed for the utilization and processing of feathers and offal as a nutritional supplement for food products. Such prior art processes are generally disclosed in, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,272,632 to Speer and 4,269,865 to Retrum.
One of the primary drawbacks in the prior art processing of waste products such as feathers and offal into nutritional supplements has been the heat degradation of various amino acids and proteins that effectively eliminates these materials as a source of nutrition. Accordingly, a need is identified for an improved method of processing waste products such as feathers and offal so as to avoid heat degradation of important amino acids and proteins and thereby provide a supplement with enhanced nutritional values.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is a primary object of the present invention to provide an economical and effective process for preparing a nutritional supplement designed to provide the desired amino acids in a highly available form to promote the growth of young animals and more particularly farm animals such as piglets.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a continuous process for preparing a nutritional supplement from whole blood, feathers and offal allowing far more efficient production while requiring relatively inexpensive equipment and, therefore, a minimal capital expenditure to initiate production.
Additional objects, advantages and other novel features of the invention will be set forth in part in the description that follows and in part will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon examination of the following or may be learned with the practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and obtained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims.
To achieve the foregoing and other objects, and in accordance with the purposes of the present invention as described herein, the present method includes the step of mixing animal blood, hydrolized poultry feathers and poultry offal at respective weight ratios of approximately 4-6/2-4/1-3 depending upon the particular application of the end product.
More specifically, fresh whole blood is steam coagulated and then pumped into a decanter centrifuge to separate the liquid and solids. The solids are used in the present process. The feathers are previously heat hydrolyzed utilizing a steam treatment or other means in accordance with various methods known in the art to produce a hydrolyzed feather product of approximately 50% moisture and 50% hydrolyzed feathers that is used in the present process. In this way, the feathers undergo a partial protein breakdown so as to be more digestible with enzymes during subsequent processing. The poultry offal is used fresh.
After mixing the coagulated animal blood solids, the heat hydrolyzed feather product and the fresh poultry offal, the mixture is ground or milled in order to produce a particle size of, for example, no greater than ¼ inch in diameter. This step serves to increase the surface area of the poultry feathers and poultry offal parts in order to enhance the digestive activity of enzymes and microorganisms active in the process.
Next is the adding of a protease enzyme to the ground mixture in order to digest the mixture. Various protease enzymes and mixtures thereof may be utilized. Preferably the enzyme(s) are added at a rate of approximately one gallon per 4000 lbs of product mixture. Next is the digesting of the ground or milled mixture by the enzyme at a temperature of substantially 54-72° C. for up to 35-60 minutes. This is followed by the spray drying of the digested mixture and the heating of the product to a maximum of 83° C. in order to reduce the moisture content down to 5-8 weight percent and kill any pathogens present in the mixture. This is then followed by the sizing of the final product.
Advantageously, by only subjecting the mixture of feathers, animal blood and offal to enzyme hydrolysis and avoiding high processing temperatures, a more digestible food product is produced. Further, the amino acids in the food product and more particularly the blood and offal are not degraded or denatured and, therefore, remain intact for the full nutritional benefit of the feeding animal.
Still other objects of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in this art from the following description wherein there is shown and described a preferred embodiment of this invention, simply by way of illustration of one of the modes best suited to carry out the invention. As it will be realized, the invention is capable of other different embodiments and its several details are capable of modification in various, obvious aspects all without departing from the invention. Accordingly, the drawings and descriptions will be regarded as illustrative in nature and not as restrictive.
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patent: 2975055 (1961-03-01), Brown et al.
patent: 3272632 (1966-09-01), Speer
patent: 3617313 (1971-11-01), Harrington, Jr. et al.
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patent: 1496143 (1977-12-01), None
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Crowley John L.
Griffin Martin W.
Thomas Steven D.
Weddington Eugene M.
Griffin Industries, Inc.
King & Schickli PLLC
Weier Anthony J.
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