Food or edible material: processes – compositions – and products – Fermentation processes – Of milk or milk product
Reexamination Certificate
2000-05-31
2002-10-01
Hendricks, Keith (Department: 1761)
Food or edible material: processes, compositions, and products
Fermentation processes
Of milk or milk product
C426S040000, C426S250000, C426S582000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06458394
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the coloration of foods and in particular dairy foods such as cheese. Specifically, the invention relates to the substantially uniform and homogeneous incorporation of a food-approved natural water-soluble annatto colorant or dye by plating it onto a solid renaturable casein substrate component ordinarily present in cheese and uniformly partitioning the colored component throughout the cheese and resulting in a whey by-product with less, generally substantially no, color contamination.
2. Technology Description
Cheese production and manufacture is obviously centuries old and although there have been many variations and improvements developed in the process over the years, the basic method of production remains unchanged. Milk is fermented with a starter bacterial culture. Casein, as well as other milk proteins, coagulates and precipitates from solution over time. This enzyme action such as rennet (chymosin) further hydrolyzes the proteins, changing the milk from a liquid to a solid-in-a-liquid two-phase system. The solids fraction is known as the curds and after heating for further solidification, the curds are separated from the liquid (or whey) and processed in order to arrive at the final cheese product.
As a means to enhance the visual and aesthetic appeal of certain types of cheese, such as cheddar, government-approved food colors or dyes are added during the process in order to give the cheese the richer, mellowed appearance of darker yellow and orange hues. In particular, one colorant which is known in the art and exhibits superior rich tones and hues when incorporated in cheese to impart or suggest a robust, flavorful cheese is annatto. Annatto is a vegetable-derived colorant chemically known as ethyl bixin whose formula and composition is a fatty pigment which is a carotenoid derived from the buds of
Bixa orellana.
During standard cheese manufacturing protocols, once the curd is fully precipitated from the aqueous fraction or whey, it is most desirable to separate the two completely. Under modern methodologies, whereas the curd is processed into the final cheese product, a purified aqueous whey can still be useful in other applications. Since colorants such as annatto are water-soluble, any attempt to incorporate them directly into the cheese by mixing them either into milk or into the curds and whey mixture as is presently done in commercial processes will yield less than optimal results since the colorant will remain solubilized and a portion will separate out and will be lost from the solid curds/cheese fraction into the aqueous whey. This has the twofold effect of delivering less annatto to the curds and potentially adding color impurities into the whey. The whey by-product resulting from cheese manufacture can be used in other food applications such as puddings, ice cream and processed cheese. In practice additional chemical processing steps such as the addition of oxidizers to bleach the by-product in order to render it more usable are typically required.
In the past, cheese color has been incorporated into natural cheeses by incorporating the annatto, in aqueous solution form, into milk which is then processed as defined above. It is believed that the annatto generally associates with the casein protein and using this as the vehicle is incorporated throughout the curds fraction and eventually throughout the final cheese product. For the production of processed cheese, color is provided through the use of either oil soluble colorants such as oil soluble annatto, which is added to the process cheese mix for incorporation into the oils used to form the processed cheese, or along with the use of pre-colored starting natural cheese (produced in accordance with the above conventional processing).
It would be advantageous then to devise a method in which the water-soluble annatto food colorant is incorporated directly onto or within the solid curd fraction. U.S. Pat. No. 4,699,664 to Hettiarachchy et al. discloses a method for the loading and stabilization of natural pigment complexes including ethyl bixin, i.e., annatto. The colorants allegedly have improved stability against oxygen, heat, light and moisture degradation and are formed into a complex comprising the pigment, a hydrocolloid such as pectin, gums and modified celluloses and a polyvalent metal cation connecting the two. The polyvalent cation is selected from the group consisting of the soluble salts of calcium, magnesium, zinc, copper and the like. The stabilized colorants can be incorporated into cheeses, beverages, processed foods and the like.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,053,240 to Todd discloses compositions comprising norbixin complexed with a substrate consisting of a water-soluble or water-dispersible protein or polysaccharide. Suitable proteins include milk protein, sodium caseinate, whey, gelatin and the like. Suitable polysaccharides include cyclodextrin, maltodextrin and food starch among others. The complexes are useful in coloring food products and beverages.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,380,553 to Schmidt teaches a method for imparting a reddish color to seasoning salts comprising the formation of a slurry of annatto in an alkaline solution, precipitating annatto with acid and plating precipitated colorant onto the salt crystals. The pigmented salt is allegedly useful in the flavoring of snack foods.
Another process for incorporation of colorant into cheese is disclosed in EP 188 067 A2. In this publication the applicant recognizes the problem that a water-soluble colorant such as Coomassie blue is partitioned into both the curd and whey portions of cheese. Those applicants suggest that if this water-soluble colorant is made into insoluble particles of equal to or greater than 0.20 microns it is possible to partition the colorant primarily into the curd portion so that none is visually detectable in the whey. To accomplish this the applicants stained insoluble acid curd particles of a size greater than 0.20 microns with the colorant and then added the insoluble, non-hydratable stained particles to fresh milk, after which natural curds are induced from the milk by the actions of acid so that the insoluble stained acid curd particles are entrapped within the newly forming natural curd. While this process of entrapping insoluble stained particles in curds of cheese can increase the amount of colorant to the curd as compared to the whey, there are significant drawbacks to such a process. While the stained insoluble particles are primarily entrapped in curd, the particles, being insoluble, are not uniformly distributed throughout the curd. Rather, individual colored insoluble particles are distributed in the newly formed curd and this can produce “hot spots” of coloring in the newly formed curd where stained insoluble particles have agglomerated during their entrapment. Furthermore, the newly formed curd itself is not colored per se; rather insoluble colorant particles are entrapped within the newly formed natural curd.
There is, therefore, still a need in the art for a method to substantially uniformly distribute water-soluble colorant into cheese and minimize or substantially eliminate color in whey by-product from the cheese making process. There is also a further need to provide a method for the substantially uniform distribution of water-soluble colorant into cheese without emptying entrapment of water-insoluble particles so as to be able to avoid the production of colorant hot spots in the resulting cheese.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In the process of this invention water-soluble annatto colorant is first placed in contact with a renaturable casein carrier (in the absence of whey) so that has the opportunity to become uniformly and homogeneously bonded with, such as by plating onto or complexing with, the renaturable casein carrier without becoming associated with whey. Since the annatto colorant first becomes bound with the renaturable casein carrier before it is added to the milk solution for making cheese, the water-
Hendricks Keith
Ohlandt, Greeley, Ruggiero and Perle
Rhodia Inc.
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