Food or edible material: processes – compositions – and products – Processes – Treatment with aqueous material – e.g. – hydration – etc.
Patent
1997-03-17
2000-12-05
Yeung, George C.
Food or edible material: processes, compositions, and products
Processes
Treatment with aqueous material, e.g., hydration, etc.
426462, 426468, 426618, A23L 100
Patent
active
06156365&
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
THIS INVENTION relates to processing of oat products and in particular to processes of preparing oat products for subsequent use such as human consumption.
The invention has been devised particularly, although not necessarily solely, for preparing oat products for use as cold or hot breakfast cereals, instant snacks, instant cereal drinks, and as ingredients in biscuits and cooking generally, baby food products, pasta, noodles and in various other known applications for oat products.
Oats have traditionally been used as a hot breakfast cereal in the form of oatmeal or porridge. However, in many homes and public dining places it is not served due to the considerable time required for its preparation and the subsequent cleaning of the utensils. Furthermore, once prepared oatmeal has poor keeping qualities and tends to become pasty and undesirable in a relatively short period of time.
Recent medical reports have shown that oat bran is capable of lowering cholesterol in humans. In addition, oat bran is a highly nutritious product, both in terms of possessing outstanding water soluble fibre levels and the richness of its protein, mineral and lipid content.
Generally the stability of oat products is reliant upon the inhibition and avoidance of enzymatic and oxidative reactions which may occur when the grain is damaged. While heating may seem a straightforward alternative to deactivate the enzymes, some processing techniques have been found to aggravate the enzymatic and oxidative reactions. For example, some heat treatments are capable of inhibiting the enzyme, but accelerate the oxidative rancidity development. Enzymatic reactions involving, for example, lipolytic enzymes occur relatively slowly at low moisture and low temperature, and unless inactivated, or removed, these reactions may lead to rancidity by the production of large quantities of free fatty acids. The rate of rancidity development is reported to be accelerated by high moisture levels and by high temperatures. Furthermore, the rancidity of oats, atributable to oxidation, can occur even more rapidly under low-moisture and high-eat conditions. steaming the hulled oats in the presence of heat (eg 100.degree. C.) for 1 to 3 hours.
Further harsh heat treatment of hulled oats leads to the destruction of antioxidants and shortening of the shelf life of the finished product.
If, for example, stabilised hulled oats are microwaved, they achieve a very desirable characteristics for consumption including a crispy texture, a smooth feel in the mouth, and a nutty flavour and aroma, but will become rancid within a few weeks in hot weather.
Most products made from stabilised hulled oats are flaked and eaten as various forms of cooked porridge, mueslis or muesli bars. The flaked oats have a raw chewy texture and retain the chewiness even after toasting. This rawness is most probably the single-most important reason why oats have not become more prominent in the cereal market.
Some products have been made from hulled oats, without first stabilising the enzymes. Such techniques usually involve boiling the hulled oats in water. This partially gelatinises the starches (see U.S. Pat. No. 4,413,018). However, no development has taken place to develop a suitable fully uniformly gelatinised hulled oat grains.
The major reasons behind the fact that oat products were not developed from gelatinised hulled oat grain was, firstly, that the properties and benefits of evenly and fully gelatinised hulled oat grain were not known, studied or understood. Secondly, no processes were discovered to dry the gelatinised hulled oat grain in a manner which retains the structure of the grain suitable for down stream processing. Thirdly, no processes were discovered to prepare the gelatinised hulled oat grain for flaking into a ready to eat cereal or stretched into a biscuit type material. Fourthly, the traditional way of oat usage was as porridge-type hot cereal.
The present invention provides a process to fully and uniformly gelatinise hulled oats in a manner rendering the product suitabl
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The Quaker Oats Company
Yeung George C.
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