Chewing gum sweetened with alitame and having a high level of lecithin
AssigneeWm. Wrigley Jr. Company
InventorRobert J. Yatka
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Chewing gum containing Alitame and a high level of lecithin has surprisingly been found to provide chewing gum with a delayed release of the Alitame. The gum composition includes about 5% to about 95% gum base, about 10% to about 90% bulking agent, a sweetening amount of Alitame, and lecithin in an amount effective to delay the release of the Alitame such that at least a 15% decrease in Alitame release rate is achieved compared to the release rate of the same formula without lecithin.
Claims19
A chewing gum composition comprising:
- a) about 5% to about 95% gum base,
- b) about 10% to about 90% bulking agent,
- c) a sweetening amount of Alitame and
- d) lecithin in an amount effective to delay the release of the Alitame, whereby at least a 15% decrease in the Alitame release rate between the first and sixth minutes of chewing, compared to the same formula without the lecithin, is achieved.
A chewing gum composition comprising:
- a) about 5% to about 95% gum base,
- b) about 10% to about 90% bulking agent,
- c) an original amount of Alitame, and
- d) lecithin in an amount effective such that after six minutes of chewing, at least 25% of the original amount of Alitame has yet to be released from the gum.
A process for delaying the release of Alitame from a gum composition comprising formulating a gum composition comprising from about 5% to about 95% gum base, about 10% to about 90% bulking agent and a sweetening amount of Alitame and admixing into the gum composition an amount of lecithin to delay the Alitame release such that after six minutes of chewing, at least 25% of the original amount of Alitame has yet to be released from the gum composition.
A process for making a chewing gum composition having a delayed release of Alitame sweetener comprising the steps of:
- a) providing a gum base at a level of about 5% to about 95% of the gum composition,
- b) providing a bulking agent at a level of about 10% to about 90% of the gum composition,
- c) providing an Alitame sweetening agent at a level of about 0.01% to about 0.2% of the gum composition,
- d) providing lecithin at a level of at least about 0.4% of the gum composition, and
- e) mixing the gum base, bulking agent, Alitame sweetening agent and lecithin to make a chewing gum composition.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.