Food or edible material: processes – compositions – and products – Fermentation processes – Of isolated seed – bean or nut – or material derived therefrom
Reexamination Certificate
2000-08-08
2002-09-17
Weier, Anthony J (Department: 1761)
Food or edible material: processes, compositions, and products
Fermentation processes
Of isolated seed, bean or nut, or material derived therefrom
C426S656000, C426S634000, C426S598000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06451359
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to soy products, and more particularly to stabilized soy beverages manufactured from dehulled whole soybeans.
Soybean or legume based food products are known for their high protein content and other health benefits such as the reduction of blood cholesterol and incidents of osteoporosis. The manufacture of soy beverage products presents a variety of distinct problems due to the chemical composition of the soybeans. For example, typical whole soy beverages usually have a chalky or fibrous texture due to the complex carbohydrates present in the soybean cotyledons and hulls. Further, soy beverages are typically plagued with a “beany” flavor caused by enzyme activity, in particular, lipoxygenase activity, that results from the cell tissue of soybean cotyledons being disrupted in the presence of moisture and oxygen.
In conventional soy beverage manufacturing processes, these problems have been addressed. Typical soymilk beverages include a combination of water and soymilk concentrate produced from a process whereby whole soybeans are dehulled and blanched. To reduce the chalky texture of the soy beverage, the soybeans are dry-dehulled prior to processing. Dry-dehulling is the industrial process whereby the soybeans are heated so that the hull is separated from the cotyledon. The soybean hull is then physically cracked and subsequently separated from the cotyledon. Alternatively, the chalky texture may be reduced by extracting the soybeans. Conventional extraction includes crushing the whole soybeans in water and pressing the resultant slurry to squeeze out a soybean liquid. To address the “beany” flavor of the resultant soy beverage, the soybeans are blanched—that is, boiled or steamed at very high temperatures. Blanching inactivates the lipoxygenase enzyme present in the soybean and eliminates the possibility of the soybean developing the “beany” flavor during subsequent processing. During the blanching step, however, the soy proteins are substantially denatured whereby solubilization of the soy proteins is inhibited.
Although manufacture of prior art soy beverages removes the chalky texture and “beany” flavor of the beverage, a distinct problem arises during storage of the beverage in containers. In particular, the beverage is extremely unstable. The beverage separates into at least two layers; a clumpy colloidal (particle) phase at the base of the container, and a free whey water phase at the top of the container. Accordingly, the beverage becomes unattractive in this separated, clumpy-looking state. Further, consumers must vigorously shake the container to recombine the colloidal phase and water phase before consuming the beverage to avoid an unpleasant texture. In the prior art, it was thought that the denaturation of the protein during the application of heat to inactivate the lipoxygenase was the cause of the colloidal separation.
To eliminate the unattractive appearance of prior art soy beverages, manufacturers conventionally package the beverage in opaque containers such as laminated paper boxes or colored plastic bottles. Although this conceals the separation of the colloidal phase and the water phase, the soy beverage still must be shaken to uniformly distribute the soybean particles in the water phase and prevent clumping when the beverage is poured from the storage container.
Manufacturers of soy beverages of the prior art have also addressed soy beverage instability by isolating soy nutraceuticals, such as particular soy proteins and soy isoflavones from whole soybeans, and putting the nutraceuticals alone in a beverage. Although the resultant soy beverage is somewhat stable, only a select few soy nutraceuticals are present therein. Thus, consumers obtain a limited number of soy nutraceuticals when they consume these soy beverages rather than the synergistic composition of all the soybean's nutraceuticals.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The aforementioned problems are overcome in the present invention for manufacturing a stabilized soy beverage from dehulled-whole soybeans that are hydrolyzed with enzymes. The soy beverage produced from the inventive process exhibits stability for extended periods of storage, absence of a “beany” flavor and lack of a chalky texture. In particular, during storage, the colloidal and water phases of the soy beverage do not separate, even for extended periods of storage. Before consuming the soy beverage, agitation of the soy beverage is unnecessary, as the colloidal and water phases do not separate in storage. Further, the soy beverage of the present invention is created from dehulled-whole soybeans; therefore all of the beneficial nutraceuticals of the dehulled-whole soybeans, such as soy proteins, isoflavones, trypsin inhibitors, saponins, phytates, phosphatides, fiber, omega-3-fatty acids and vitamin E, to name a few, are present in the resultant beverage.
It has been discovered that colloidal separation of soy beverage during storage is caused by the binding of proteins and carbohydrates present in the whole soybeans used to manufacture the beverage. Once the proteins and carbohydrates bind together, the large macro molecules formed thereby tend to clump together and separate and/or precipitate out from the liquid phase. According to this discovery, the process of the present invention enzymatically hydrolyzes the soy proteins and soy carbohydrates to extensively inhibit binding to one another and subsequent colloidal separation. The resultant product of this process is a hydrolyzed soy base.
More particularly, the process of the present invention used to manufacture the hydrolyzed soy base includes the steps of: providing whole soybeans that include carbohydrates and proteins; hydrolyzing the proteins and hydrolyzing the carbohydrates so that the proteins and carbohydrates do not bind to form colloidal masses. In the preferred embodiment of the present invention, the process of manufacturing a hydrolyzed soy base includes the steps of: providing whole soybeans; soaking and preliminarily incubating the whole soybeans so that endogenous enzymes of the soybean are brought to a potentially active state; dehulling the soaked soybeans and separating the wet hulls from the cotyledons; incubating the cotyledons at a temperature so that enzymes present in the soybean begin to hydrolyze the soy protein and carbohydrates; gelatinizing the partially hydrolyzed complex polysaccharides in the incubated cotyledons by high temperature treatment; milling the boiled cotyledons into a slurry; adding enzyme(s) to the slurry to further enhance hydrolyzing the soy carbohydrates therein and then subsequently deactivating the enzyme; and, deodorizing the cotyledon slurry to form a hydrolyzed soybean base.
The process for formulating the hydrolyzed soybean base may be supplemented with additional steps to create a soy beverage. These additional steps include: mixing sweeteners, stabilization aids, and coloring of the hydrolyzed soybean base; homogenizing the resultant formulated mix; and either sterilizing the homogenized formulation at ultrahigh temperatures for batches to be stored at ambient temperature or pasteurizing the mix at lower temperatures for batches of the homogenized formulation to be refrigerated.
The hydrolyzed soy base manufactured from the process of the present invention has a wide variety of applications. For example, the soy base may be incorporated solely or in combination with dairy or a variety of other food products such as beverages, yogurts, deserts, infant foods, cream liquors, puddings, creams, spreads, cheeses, mayonnaise, sherbets, tofu, yuba, aburrage, milkshakes and soups.
These and other objects, advantages, and features of the invention will be more readily understood and appreciated by reference to the detailed description of the preferred embodiment and the drawings.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT
The present invention can be characterized as a method of manufacturing a soy base from dehulled-whole soybeans partially hydrolyzed with enzymes that
Soy Ultima, L.L.C.
Warner & Norcross & Judd LLP
Weier Anthony J
LandOfFree
Soy beverage and related method of manufacture does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Soy beverage and related method of manufacture, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Soy beverage and related method of manufacture will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2832589