`Fortifying Donkey Milk with Olive Oil, and Other Inventions - Olive Oil Times

Fortifying Donkey Milk with Olive Oil, and Other Inventions

By Julie Butler
Aug. 19, 2013 09:37 UTC

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In our lat­est look at some of the inter­na­tional patents sought for olive oil and olive-related prod­ucts, olive oil makes don­key milk more suit­able for human babies and the many uses of the vol­canic min­eral Zeolite.

Also among recent appli­ca­tions at the World Intellectual Property Organization are a new machine for mak­ing olive oil at home or in a restau­rant, and a process for the eas­ier mass pro­duc­tion of stuffed olives.

Suntory prod­uct fea­tur­ing olive extract 

Japanese drinks giant Suntory Holdings Limited claims to have devel­oped an olive extract prod­uct that packs a pow­er­ful and per­sis­tent in-vivo antiox­i­dant punch.

Its patent appli­ca­tion explains that a chem­i­cal com­po­si­tion known as des(rhamnosyl) acteo­side is added to the olive extract to pro­duce the effect.

Provided are food and drink, a non-med­i­c­i­nal prod­uct, and a med­i­cine in which high antiox­i­dant effect is exhib­ited over a long period of time in vivo,” it says.

Machine for mak­ing olive oil at home or in a restau­rant 

From Spain comes a machine that allows olive oil to be made from olive paste. Oriented to use in homes or restau­rants, it is designed to allow the oil to be made quickly and eas­ily.

Unlike ear­lier such inven­tions, this machine is sim­ple to oper­ate and requires no spe­cial­ist knowl­edge to oper­ate it nor inter­ven­tion dur­ing the extrac­tion process, the patent appli­ca­tion claims.

The machine’s com­pact hous­ing is designed to rotate to pro­vide for both the churn­ing and cen­trifug­ing of the paste. It is also suit­able for mak­ing oil from the paste from peanuts, hazel­nuts and other such prod­ucts, as well as from olive paste that has been frozen, and for mix­ing in other com­po­nents to give oil a dis­tinct fla­vor.

Olive oil helps make don­key milk even bet­ter for babies 
Donkey milk has been found a use­ful alter­na­tive for chil­dren affected by cow milk allergy and other food intol­er­ances. But its low fat con­tent — it pro­vides less energy than human milk — com­pli­cates its use in baby for­mu­las and other infant nutri­tion.

Thus, from Greece comes an appli­ca­tion cov­er­ing sev­eral kinds of pow­dered don­key milk, one of which is for­ti­fied with extra vir­gin olive oil to deliver more calo­ries.

To ensure the encap­su­la­tion and sta­bil­ity of the olive oil in the don­key milk solids, the mix­ture is homog­e­nized and emul­si­fied before freeze dry­ing.

The ver­sa­tile vol­canic min­eral Zeolite 

The vol­canic min­eral and antiox­i­dant zeo­lite is already known to have use in remov­ing phe­nols from black­wa­ter waste from olive oil pro­duc­tion. But this patent appli­ca­tion from Turkey describes a fine, pow­der sized form of nat­ural zeo­lite which has a larger sur­face area and higher adsorp­tion capa­bil­ity.

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After treat­ment with it, the solid waste left after fil­ter­ing can be used as a nutri­tional sup­ple­ment for ani­mals and the water used for farm irri­ga­tion.

The zeo­lite is also said to remove bad odors gen­er­ated dur­ing olive oil pro­duc­tion more effec­tively than exist­ing prod­ucts and meth­ods, to be ideal as a con­stituent of soap made from olive oil byprod­ucts and cop­per, and to be use­ful in removal of heavy metal traces.

Easier mass pro­duc­tion of stuffed olives 

From Turkey comes a way to stuff olives — such as with pimiento or other foods such as green pep­per, car­rot, lemon and cel­ery — that is said to over­come the inef­fi­ciency of hand-stuff­ing as well as draw­backs with alter­na­tive, auto­mated meth­ods.

According to the patent appli­ca­tion, man­ual meth­ods are still used whereby work­ers use eye­ball esti­ma­tion and hand skill to insert pimiento into pit­ted olives. But issues with this include that the work­ers can only do a small amount of pimiento place­ment per day, com­pli­ance with hygiene rules can­not be con­trolled”, and the pimiento can come out over time, cre­at­ing a bad appear­ance.”

One of the pur­poses of this inven­tion is said to be to instead pro­vide for a low-cost, mass pro­duc­tion, auto­mated oper­a­tion. Compared to some exist­ing alter­na­tives, it has fewer parts and is thus prac­ti­cal and sim­ple, has a low man­u­fac­tur­ing cost, and the pimiento (or other food) stays inside the olives for much longer, it is claimed.

Planting method apt for mechan­i­cal har­vest­ing 

The French group Pellenc — already behind the fil­ing of more than 500 patents in the agri­cul­ture field — is seek­ing a patent for its method of plant­ing olive trees to pro­vide for the rapid and con­tin­u­ous mechan­i­cal har­vest­ing of the olives of all vari­eties.

Said to be par­tic­u­larly apt for plan­ta­tions cov­ered by Denominations of Origin, the method cov­ers details such as the spac­ing of olive tree saplings in par­al­lel rows, trel­lis­ing on each row, place­ment of tree sup­ports, and how the shape of the foliage should be adapted and peri­od­i­cally pruned.

The result­ing plan­ta­tions are said to be ide­ally suited to har­vest­ing by machines orig­i­nally designed for grapes and that pro­vide direct col­lec­tion of the olives, thus avoid­ing the need to let them first fall to the ground.

Pellenc says the method pro­motes high yields and the shorter har­vest is a boon for qual­ity.

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