GB840154A - Method of coating food articles and product obtained thereby - Google Patents

Abstract

Articles of food, e.g. meat, smoked or cured meat, fish, fowl, cheese, are provided with readily strippable coatings by applying to the cool food a molten composition of 20-50% of ethyl cellulose of ethoxyl content 47.5-50% and viscosity, determined as a 5% solution in a 4 : 1 toluene-ethanol mixture, of 6-200 cp., 20-65% of an oily constituent, of which part at least is oleaginous food from a natural source and any balance is refined mineral oil of Saybolt viscosity 80-400 units at 100 DEG F., and 6-25% of a colourless, non-toxic plasticizer which dissolves ethyl cellulose, and hardening the coating by cooling. The plasticizer is exemplified by an alkyl phthalyl glycolate, trialkyl ester of acyl citric acid, dialkyl adipate or alkyl aryl phosphate; a plasticizer combination employed according to examples is of refined and deodourized castor oil, an acetylated monoglyceride derived from lard and glyceryl monooleate. The oleaginous food may be corn oil, lard, peanut oil, cottonseed oil, soya bean oil or coconut oil. The coating composition may contain a substance, e.g. epoxidized soya bean oil, which inhibits hydrolytic degradation of the ethyl cellulose, a cellulose ether antioxidant, e.g. butylated hydroxyanisole, nordihydroguaiaretic acid, 2,6-ditertiary butyl-4-methyl phenol, 2,21-thio-bis(4-methyl-6-tertiary butyl phenol), a coating colour stabilizer, e.g. citric acid, tartaric acid or tricresyl phosphite.