Starch phosphate ester for use as an expansion aid

Details Starch phosphate ester for use as an expansion aid Starch phosphate ester for use as an expansion aid

2001-01-26

2002-10-08

Bhat, Nina (Department: 1761)

Food or edible material: processes, compositions, and products

Direct application of electrical or wave energy to food...

Heating by electromagnetic wave

C426S557000, C426S558000, C426S578000, C426S520000, C426S293000, C426S330000, C426S661000, C426S549000, C126S070000, C126S033000, C536S109000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06461656

ABSTRACT:

FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is directed to the use of starch phosphate esters as an expansion and/or texture aid in food or industrial products. The invention further provides the formulations and improved expanded products containing starch phosphate esters, particularly extruded breakfast cereals and snacks.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Expansion is an important characteristic of a number of materials and is useful in a number of applications, including the preparation of sheets, shaped foam and loosefill products as well as in the preparation of food products. Food products in which expanded materials are useful include pasta, pet food, breakfast cereals and snacks. The expansion of food products is accomplished by a variety of means including extrusion, puffing, frying and baking.
The expansion processes which are used for making expanded products affect the physical and structural properties of starch. Under the process conditions of known food expansion, starch undergoes a melting, plasticizing and/or gelatinizing process. The structure of starch polymers in the plasticized or gelatinized state influence the product characteristics of expansion, crispness, bite, puff and texture as well as product-specific attributes such as the bowl life of cereals.
Another important parameter is the relative amylose-amylopectin content of starch. Amylose is known to provide crunchiness and strength in expanded products, whereas increased amylopectin content typically results in a product with increased expansion, crispness and puffiness.
Starches have been modified with the objective of affecting the expansion and texture of expanded products. For instance, pregelatinized starches have been used where the process conditions do not allow for complete gelatinization or complete disintegration of the granular structure of the starch. Wang, S. W.: Starches and Starch Derivatives in Expanded Snacks, Cereal Foods World, Vol. 42, pg 743-745 (1997). In addition, crosslinked starches have been used under high shear conditions in order to reduce otherwise severe fragmentation of the starch polymers. Id.
Further, starches which have been modified to provide cold water soluble attributes are known to improve the expansion and texture of final expanded products. Such cold water soluble starches include hydroxypropylated or carboxymethylated starches. See U.S. Pat. No. 3,9566,990; Bhattacharyya, D., Singhal, R. s. and P. R. Kulkarni: Carboxymethyl Starch: an Expansion Aid, Carbohydrate Polymers 31, 79-82 (1996); and U.S. Pat. No., 5,480,669. Resistant starches have also been used to affect the expansion of food products. Id. While phosphorylated starches have been described for use in food products, they have not been described as an expansion aid.
Starch phosphate monoesters have been described for use in a variety of food products, particularly as viscosifiers in order to improve texture and stability of non-expanded food. In particular, U.S. Ser. No. 09/633,832, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference, describes the use of starch phosphate monoesters in protein-containing, low to intermediate moisture foods to improve the taste, texture, color and moisture retention of such foods. Texture, in this case, refers to the texture of the food that is strongly affected by improved retention of moisture content during storage of the starch phosphate monoester-treated food product.
Surprisingly, it has now been discovered that, irrespective of the amylose/amylopectin content of the native starch structure or modification of the native starch structure, starch phosphate monoesters may be advantageously used as expansion aids in foods, particularly breakfast cereals and snacks.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is directed to the use of starch phosphate esters as an expansion and/or texture aid in food or industrial products. The invention further provides the formulations and improved expanded products containing starch phosphate esters, particularly extruded breakfast cereals and snacks.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is directed to the use of starch phosphate esters as an expansion and/or texture aid in food or industrial products. The invention further provides the formulations and improved expanded products containing starch phosphate esters, particularly extruded breakfast cereals and snacks.
All starches and flours (hereinafter “starch”) may be suitable for use herein and may be derived from any native source. A native starch or flour as used herein, is one as it is found in nature. Also suitable are starches and flours derived from a plant obtained by standard breeding techniques including crossbreeding, translocation, inversion, transformation or any other method of gene or chromosome engineering to include variations thereof. In addition, starch or flours derived from a plant grown from artificial mutations and variations of the above generic composition which may be produced by known standard methods of mutation breeding are also suitable herein.
Typical sources for the starches and flours are cereals, tubers, roots, legumes and fruits. The native source can be corn, pea, potato, sweet potato, banana, barley, wheat, rice, sago, amaranth, tapioca, arrowroot, canna, sorghum, and waxy or high amylose varieties thereof. A used herein, the term “waxy” is intended to include a starch or flour containing at least about 95% by weight amylopectin and the term “high amylose” is intended to include a starch or flour containing at least about 40% by weight amylose.
Conversion products derived from any of the starches, including fluidity or thin-boiling starches prepared by oxidation, enzyme conversion, acid hydrolysis, heat and or acid dextrinization, and or sheared products may also be useful herein.
Chemically modified starches may also be used, provided such modification does not destroy the granular nature of the starch. Such chemical modifications are intended to include, without limitation, crosslinked starches, acetylated and organically esterified starches, hydroxyethylated and hydroxypropylated starches, phosphorylated and inorganically esterified starches, cationic, anionic, nonionic, and zwitterionic starches, and succinate and substituted succinate derivatives of starch. Such modifications are known in the art, for example in Modified Starches: Properties and Uses, Ed. Wurzburg, CRC Press, Inc., Florida (1986).
The starch phosphate monoesters used in the formulations of the present invention may be prepared via methods known in the art. Traditional preparations of starch phosphate monoesters are described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,166,173, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. These preparations generally require the impregnation of the base starch with an alkali-metal phosphate, drying to a moisture content of less than 20% and heating in a continuous cooker, dextrinizer, convection oven or vacuum oven to effect the phosphorylation.
Additional methods of preparing starch phosphate monoesters using fluidizied bed methodology are described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,843,377 and WO 99/64467, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference. These methods disclose the use of a fluidized bed reactor in order to heat treat and phosphorylate starch in the presence of urea under semi-dry conditions of less than 5% moisture at temperatures of between 100° C. to 175° C. for between 20 to 60 minutes.
The term “starch phosphate monoester” is intended to include, without limit, all equivalent terms, known to one of ordinary skill in the art, such as monostarch phosphate and includes regulatory definitions. Regulatory definitions of starch phosphate monoesters for use in food are often defined by the method in which they are made. In Europe, for example, a monostarch phosphate is defined to be a starch esterified with ortho-phosphoric acid or sodium or potassium ortho-phosphate or sodium tripolyphosphate. In the United States, a starch phosphate monoester is a food starch esterified by sodium trimetaphosphate o

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