Food or edible material: processes – compositions – and products – Products per se – or processes of preparing or treating... – Basic ingredient lacteal derived other than butter...
Reexamination Certificate
2000-09-20
2003-07-15
Paden, Carolyn (Department: 1761)
Food or edible material: processes, compositions, and products
Products per se, or processes of preparing or treating...
Basic ingredient lacteal derived other than butter...
C426S631000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06592927
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a skimmed milk powder substitute, and more particularly to a skimmed milk powder substitute useful in the manufacture of foods having a reduced content of fermentable sugars, such as confectionary, particularly chocolate.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
There is increasing awareness in today's society that consumption of sugar-rich foods, whilst providing a good deal of pleasure, is unfortunately not conducive to good health. Such-foods have been shown to be a principal cause of tooth decay due to the fermentation of the sugars to acids within the mouth by endogenous bacteria. Additionally, excessive consumption of such foods results in obesity.
Whilst the simplest solution to this problem would be for consumers to abstain from or restrict their consumption of such sugar-rich foods, this solution has unsurprisingly not found mass appeal. Accordingly, food manufacturers are constantly investigating ways to reduce the sugar content of their foods in order to promote them as healthier alternatives to the corresponding sugar-rich products. For instance, the production of various confectionary products containing reduced sucrose contents is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,532,146, WO 93/02566, EP-A-0 026 119 and EP-A-0 317 917.
Unfortunately, minimising or eliminating the sucrose content from a food does not provide a complete solution to the problem in the case of foods which contain other sorts of fermentable sugars such as lactose. This is particularly so for foods, such as chocolate, whose ingredients include milk derived products such as dried milk powder. Chocolate normally contains about 6%. by weight of lactose due to its content of milk derived products.
It is therefore desirable to reduce or eliminate lactose, as well as sucrose, from foods. In the case of chocolate, it is suggested in EP-A-0 317 917 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,490,996 to replace the dried milk powder conventionally included amongst its ingredients with a protein extract derived from milk. Unfortunately, the resulting chocolate does not possess the desirable milky flavour associated with good quality chocolate. It is likely that this is due to the protein extract lacking minerals which are naturally present in milk. An additional problem with the chocolates produced by the methods described in EP-A-0 317 917 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,490,996 is that they possess an unpleasant gritty mouth-feel due to the presence of relatively coarse particles within the chocolate which are not broken down during production. It is speculated that these particles result from protein chains present in the protein extract being insufficiently degraded during refining.
EP-A-0 788 744 provides a process for preparing a milk powder substitute having a reduced content of lactose. The powder is produced by homogenising milk fats and milk proteins in a weight ratio of 1:0.33-3.0 to form a stable oil-in-water emulsion in which the fat is conjugated to the protein. This emulsion is then dried to produce the milk powder.
The resulting milk powder has however a number of significant technical disadvantages. Firstly, the powder tends to agglomerate into clumps due to its relatively high fat content which leads to difficulties in bulk handling. For instance if the powder is stored in bags, then it can stiffen into a relatively hard block.
The relatively high fat content restricts the shelf life of the milk powder to around 6-9 months due to oxidation or enzymatic breakdown of the fat component which both produce unpalatable rancid flavours. Enzymatic breakdown is caused by the action of the enzyme lipase. This enzyme is naturally present in milk and is expressed by some bacterial species found in milk. The fat content can also melt at temperatures above 25° C. These problems also dictate that the milk powder substitute taught by EP-A-0 788 744 has to be transported under carefully controlled conditions.
In view of these problems, the need remains to provide a milk powder substitute free from these disadvantages and which can be used as a food ingredient, particularly of chocolate, and from which foods can be manufactured having desirable taste characteristics but reduced contents of fermentable sweeteners and fat.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a skimmed milk powder substitute, together with a method for its preparation, which has a reduced content of lactose and fat and which can be used as an ingredient in the manufacture of foods such as chocolate.
The present invention also aims to provide foods, such as chocolate, produced using such a skimmed milk powder substitute as an ingredient.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
According to a first aspect, the present invention provides a method for preparing a skimmed milk powder substitute comprising the steps of:
(i) mixing:
(a) protein selected from total milk protein, milk protein concentrate and milk protein isolate, (b) a non-fermentable sweetening and/or bulking agent, and (e) one or more salts in water to form an aqueous solution or dispersion which includes 0-40 weight parts of lactose and 0-10 weight parts of fat per 100 weight parts of the protein; and
(ii) drying the solution or dispersion to form the powder substitute in which the protein and sweetening and/or bulking agent are intimately mixed.
According to a second aspect, the present invention provides a skimmed milk powder substitute comprising an intimate mixture of:
(a) total milk protein, milk protein concentrate or milk protein isolate,
(b) a non-fermentable sweetening and/or bulking agent,
(c) 0-40 parts by weight of lactose per 100 parts by weight of the protein,
(d) 0-10 parts by weight of fat per 100 parts by weight of the protein, and
(e) one or more salts.
In these aspects, the protein is a mixture of proteins from milk or skimmed milk. Such proteins may be obtained by precipitation and further purification e.g. washing, solubilisation or conversion followed by drying. It is also possible to prepare the protein by filtration, fractionation or any other process known for concentrating or isolating milk proteins. Such processes include microfiltration, ultrafiltration, ion-exchange/adsorption, manofiltration and electrophoresis.
The milk proteins are TMP (total milk protein), MPC (milk protein concentrate) or MPI (milk protein isolate). Each of TMP, MPC and MPI contain casein and whey proteins in approximately the same ratio as found naturally in milk. It is mentioned that conventional skimmed milk powder contains around 36% by weight of protein of which approximately 80% by weight are casein proteins and 20% by weight are whey proteins. The use of TMP, MPC or MPI as the source of protein results in the skimmed milk powder substitute of the present invention having a similar chemical make-up to conventional skimmed milk powder except for the replacement of the majority of lactose by a non-fermentable sweetening/bulking agent.
The protein component derived from milk may be adulterated with other milk components such as salts, fat and lactose. Whilst the presence of small amounts of fat and/or lactose are difficult to avoid, these amounts must not be so great that the resulting skimmed milk powder substitute contains more than 40 weight parts of lactose or more than 10 weight parts of fat per 100 weight parts of protein. It is in fact preferred that no fat or lactose is purposefully included in the skimmed milk powder substitute. However, it is possible that the skimmed milk powder substitute will contain limited amounts of fat and lactose by virtue of them adulterating one or more of the components used to produce the skimmed milk powder substitute such as the protein or the salt components.
The non-fermentable sweetening/bulking agent constituting the component (b) is one which does not cause a significant drop in the pH value of the dental plaque after consumption. Many such agents are known including sorbitol, mannitol, xylitol, maltitol, lactitol, isomalt, indigestible dext
Cordts Hans-Ulrich
Kruger Christof Friedrich Karl
Laverty Richard James
Pipa Fernando
Paden Carolyn
Scully Scott Murphy & Presser
Xyrofin Oy
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