Mars, Incorporated

Philip J Lowe

Keith Buckley

Ian Edward Burrows

Alan Vernon

A rehydratable dry animal food is prepared by preparing a mix of comminuted, heat-treated meaty materials, fat and pregelatinized starch carbohydrate binder, forming the mix into pieces and drying the pieces to form permeable solid pieces which rehydrate to a paste-like material of heterogeneous texture. The mix preferably contains bone fragments, which can be softened by autoclaving and which lend a desirable flaky texture to the rehydrated product. The pregelatinized starch carbohydrate binder may be pregelatinized potato powder or cereal products in which the starch content is in pregelatinized form or other starch containing products in which the starch component has been pregelatinized. Typical mixes contain 70-80% meaty materials, 10% fat and 10-20% of said binder. The pieces may be extruded under low pressure or extrusion-expanded to give an open texture.

Animal food and method

Blood, red blood derivatives or blood-containing materials such as liver are decolorized for use in food or animal food products by oxidants such as hydrogen peroxide or calcium or sodium peroxide. Excess peroxide can be removed and a desirable color achieved by adding further blood, blood derivative or meaty material. Reaction with the peroxide can be facilitated by a pH reversal process in which the pH is raised or lowered by at least 2 units and then restored. Heat or a combination of heat and pH reversal can also be employed. Flavors and other additions added to the blood or other material before decolorization are locked in the resulting product. The decolorized material can be canned as a mince-like product or mixed with other foodstuffs.

Food Protein Product

A protein food product is described, together with a process for making it. Whey protein derived from milk is adjusted to a pH of 6 to 9 and coagulated by heat, thereby giving a firm, non-brittle material which is useful as a protein food in its own right, or as a matrix for composite products, or in the manufacture of pieces resembling meat offals such as kidney, to improve the texture of meat-containing mixes, for example of sausage type, and for other food products, all of which are useful as protein foods for animals and also for human beings.

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Dunkirk, United Kingdom

Philip J Lowe