Food or edible material: processes – compositions – and products – Products per se – or processes of preparing or treating... – Fat or oil is basic ingredient other than butter in emulsion...
Reexamination Certificate
1995-06-19
2001-11-27
Paden, Carolyn (Department: 1761)
Food or edible material: processes, compositions, and products
Products per se, or processes of preparing or treating...
Fat or oil is basic ingredient other than butter in emulsion...
C426S602000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06322842
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates to a fat continuous stick product having up to 80% of a fat phase and having a trans fatty acid level of less than 10%. The wrapper product is prepared by a novel process of passing the fat and aqueous phases into a crystallizing unit between two scrapped surface heat exchangers, such that the crystallizer provides shear and does not contribute significantly to the residence time.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Margarine and spreads in the form of stick products are popular with many consumers who enjoy the serving size and shape of such products. To form a stick product, the plastic dispersion must contain from about 30 to 80% fat, stand up under its own weight at room temperature and be processible to be packed in a wrapper package. Additionally, consumer trends have been toward such stick products based on vegetable fats which spread easily, have a good melting behavior in both the mouth and on heated food items, contain a relatively high proportion of unsaturated fatty acids and also have a relatively low trans fatty acid level, preferably a level lower than 10%.
Conventional stick products containing much higher levels of trans fatty acids (i.e. greater than 10%) are cooled in scrapped surface heat exchanger units (A-units) before passing into a resting tube (B-unit). The conventional process thus provides a residence time in the resting tube so that the cooled oil or fat phase is substantially crystallized during the process rather than during storage.
With emulsions prepared from oil phases containing low levels of trans fatty acids, it was observed that conventional processing produced post-crystallization during storage and the packed product was brittle. Additional residence time is provided by the crystallizing units (C-unit) and the resting tube (B-unit). Therefore, the rotors within the crystallizing units (C-units) are conventionally run at relatively low shear speeds (e.g. less than 250 rpm) to add additional residence time to the processing of the stick products and avoid post-crystallization during storage. Even after providing the additional residence time it is difficult to obtain a uniformly crystallized stick product which has ideal packing hardness and is not brittle.
Traditionally, the residence time provided by passing through the C-units is only done after cooling the emulsion to a temperature where some crystals are formed and is not subjected to high shear. There therefore exists a need for a process to prepare a plastic dispersion having less than 10% trans fatty acid levels in the form of a stick which has a desirable hardness without brittleness and which exhibits good organoleptic properties.
Another object of the invention is to provide a commercially economical process which provides faster product packing and yet is flexible enough to be modified as required.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
This invention provides a novel process for producing a fat continuous plastic dispersion in the form of a stick which has up to 80% fat, less than 10% trans fatty acid content and has a mean aqueous phase droplet size distribution (d3.3) of less than 10 microns. The process comprises mixing a water phase and an oil phase containing an interesterfied hardstock in a scrapped surface heat exchanger so that the cooled emulsion has an exit temperature of less than about 20° C., (b) shearing the cooled emulsion in a crystallizing unit at a temperature greater than the exit temperature sufficient to form minimum alpha crystals (greater than 2%) of the cooled emulsion to provide shear to the cooled emulsion, (c) then cooling the emulsion containing the crystals in a second scrapped surface heat exchanger at a temperature of 2 to 8° C. below the exit temperature of the cooled emulsion from the first heat exchanger to form a plastic dispersion in a stick form with a mean water droplet size of less than 10 microns through the process providing longer residence time with either a C-unit or a B-unit alone or in combination, depending on the trans fatty acid levels. A stick product as described above prepared by the novel process is also presented.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
The process in the present invention provides a means of preparing a low trans fatty acid containing stick product in a residence time shorter than the times of conventional processes and yet by a process which avoids the common place problem of post-storage crystallization in such products. Contrary to conventional wisdom, it was discovered that a slow crystallizing fat blend having less than 10% trans fatty acids could be processed to form a stick product at shorter residence times than expected and yet without producing brittleness in the products.
A stick margarine or spread is prepared by combining an oil or fat phase and an aqueous phase. Depending on the desirable level of fat in the final product, the fat phase must contain 20 to 40% of a hardstock which has been interesterfied and 60 to 80% of a liquid vegetable oil to form a product having a trans fatty acid level is not more than 10% of the total composition. A partially or fully hardened vegetable oil may optionally be added to the fat phase.
Throughout the application, the terms “fat” and may be interchanged and refer to a variety of edible fatty triglycerides, such as soybean oil, cottonseed oil, peanut oil, olive oil, palm oil, corn oil, rapeseed oil, sunflower seed oil, sesame oil, safflower oil and mixtures thereof. If animal oils are desirable, sardine oil, lard and tallow may be used. Preferred vegetable oils include soybean oil, rapeseed oil, particularly low erucic acid, and mixtures thereof. To increase the levels of trans fatty acids in triglycerides, the vegetable oil may be partially or fully hardened.
Edible substances that are physically similar to triglyceride such as waxes, (e.g. jojoba oil) and poly fatty acid esters of mono- or disaccharides can be used as replacement or in a mixture with triglycerides may also be used.
The fat blend or hardstock useful in the invention should contain less than 10% trans fatty acids, preferably 0.1 to 8%, most preferably 0.1 to 5%. The hardstock is preferably prepared by randomly interesterfying a mixture containing 30 to 75 wt. % of an oil (i) in which at least 20% of the fatty acid residues consist of linoleic acid and 25 to 70 wt. % of a fat (ii) in which at least 80% of the fatty acid residues is saturated and have a chain link of at least 16 carbon atoms. The interesterfied mixture is then fractionated to contain an olein having the following solid fat content:
N
10
=22 to 80
N
20
=8 to 60
N
30
=1 to 25
N
35
=0 to 15
The higher melting stearin has been separated and 50 to 90% of the olein is mixed with 10 to 50 wt. % of an oil (iii) in which at least 40% of the fatty acid residues consist of linoleic acid.
The solid fat contents are expressed in N-values, essentially as described in Fette, Sefein, Anstrichmittel Vol. 80, pp. 180-186 (1978). Although the method was modified during the stabilization of the material before measurement, in all cases the fat was stabilized for 16 hours at 0° C. and one hour at the measuring temperature.
Oil (i) preferably is a vegetable oil, such as soybean oil, sunflower oil, safflower oil, rapeseed oil, particularly low erucic acid, cottonseed oil, maze oil, olive oil and mixtures thereof.
The oil or fat (ii) preferably is any of the oils (i) or a mixture thereof, which has been hydrogenated to obtain a fat in which at least 80% of the fatty acid residues is saturated using, for example, a freshly precipitated nickel catalyst under conditions avoiding trans fatty acids formation to a level of less than 10%. Oil or fat (ii) preferably has a melting point range of 50 to 70° C. and an iodine value of less than 10, preferably less than 5, most preferably about 1.
The oil (iii) preferably is a safflower oil, a sunflower oil, a maze oil, a grapeseed oil, a soybean oil, rapeseed oil, cottonseed oil or mixtures thereof.
Most preferably (i), (ii) and (iii) are from the same
Madsen Robert Andrew
Reddy Podutoori Ravinder
Schuurman Johannes Henricus
Boxer Matthew
Paden Carolyn
Sequillante, Jr. Edward A.
Van den Bergh Foods Company, Division of CONOPCO, Inc.
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