Food or edible material: processes – compositions – and products – Shaping by extruding into chemically reactive fluid
Patent
1993-11-02
1995-06-13
Corbin, Arthur L.
Food or edible material: processes, compositions, and products
Shaping by extruding into chemically reactive fluid
426573, 426657, A23L 10562
Patent
active
054240840
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
TECHNICAL FIELD
This invention relates to collagen beads and a process for producing the same.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Bead-type shaped articles produced by using biopolymers (for example, proteins, polysaccharides and the like) have been utilized as bead foods and as supports for immobilizing physiologically active substances.
As a bead-type food, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 79755/1976 proposes a process for producing a fish roe-like food which comprises gelatinizing cold-gelling and edible aqueous sol droplets (for example, gelatin) by cooling, further coating the gelatinized particles thus formed with a film-forming sol and contacting the same with a gelling agent to thereby form a gelatinized film layer. Further, Japanese Patent Publication No. 11101/1970 proposes to provide gelatinized alginate particles by treating an alginate with a divalent metal ion which can be incorporated into the body of a living organism.
As a bead-type shaped article produced with the use of collagen, Japanese Patent Publication No. 1169/1989 describes a process for producing collagen beads which are usable as a support for immobilizing a physiologically active substance. This process comprises forming collagen spheres in an organic solvent which is hardly miscible or immiscible with water and then hardening the spheres.
However there has been developed no bead-type shaped collagen article which is applicable to foods.
In the conventional methods for producing collagen beads as described above, an aqueous liquid of a high concentration of a collagen material is employed and a hardly miscible or immiscible organic solvent is used during the production process. In general, many hardly miscible or immiscible organic solvents are harmful to human beings. Therefore, the production of beads with the use of such organic solvents suffers from problems of the contamination and remaining of the organic solvents in the beads. In the conventional methods, furthermore, aldehydes and metal salts such as chromium salts are used in order to harden or crosslink collagen. Therefore, the beads thus obtained are hardly applicable to foods.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In the present invention, no organic solvent but an aqueous liquid of a collagen material of a low concentration is used and, therefore, the beads are never contaminated with any organic solvent. Further, a substance used in the present invention for hardening the beads thus formed has a high degree of safety when applied to foods. Furthermore, the present invention makes it possible to produce collagen beads in a large amount industrially.
The present inventors have conducted extensive studies in order to provide a highly safe solution wherein the employed solvent is other than a hardly miscible or immiscible organic solvent, and an aqueous liquid of a collagen material can be formulated into spherical beads simply by dropping the aqueous collagen liquid into said solvent. As a result, they have successfully found out that spherical collagen beads can be formed by dropping an aqueous liquid of a collagen material into an aqueous solution of tannin which is a natural organic compound frequently contained in, for example, foods and drugs. They have further found out that when the collagen beads thus formed are maintained in the aqueous solution of tannin, tannin penetrates into the spherical collagen beads to thereby solidify the collagen beads.
On the basis of these findings, the present inventors have discussed the concentration of the collagen material in the aqueous liquid of the collagen material, the concentration of tannin in the aqueous tannin solution and the pH value of the aqueous tannin solution, each required for the formation of the collagen beads, thus completing the present invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
Collagen is a protein hardly soluble in water which constitutes animal connective tissues such as bone and skin, and is in the form of rods with a helical structure consisting of three peptide chains (molecular weight: 300,
REFERENCES:
patent: 4202908 (1980-05-01), Nesmeyanov et al.
patent: 4375481 (1983-03-01), Kuwabara et al.
patent: 4702921 (1987-10-01), Ueda
patent: 5223029 (1993-06-01), Oonishi et al.
Ebihara Tetsuya
Okamoto Yasushi
Corbin Arthur L.
Nippi Incorporated
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