Mallya to make diet whisky and vodka, has U.S. patent
Wednesday, 18 June 2008, 19:30 IST
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London: UB Group of India has developed the technology and been granted the US patent for manufacturing diet whisky and vodka, chairman Vijay Mallya said in what he described as an example of "thinking out of the bottle". The flamboyant Indian entrepreneur told students at the London Business School that his Vittal Mallya Scientific Research Foundation in Bangalore has developed the technology to convert the active ingredient of an Indian fruit that helps fight obesity into a safe liquid version. "The plant called Garcenia contains some natural substances that works on your digestive system and actually breaks down your sugar cells and fat cells," Mallya said Monday. "It has been used in the United States health food industry for decades. But making this Garcinia soluble in liquid is a technology that we have developed and patented in the U.S.," he added. "So we now have a legitimate diet whisky and a legitimate diet vodka," which had been successfully tested for calories. "We sent it to a lab to check the calorific value and we proved it," Mallya said. Mallya said manufacturing and marketing was delayed “because of the fighting with the European Union over classification”. "All of this was developed by us in India. We do think out of the box - no, make that out of the bottle," he said during a lecture and interaction session with LBS students - an event organised by the UK India Business Council and the business school's India Business Forum. Research by the Vittal Mallya Scientific Research Foundation has centred around a fruit from the Garcinia family, the Malabar Tamarind (biological name, Garcinia Cambogia), whose primary acid, hydroxycitric acid (HCA), can help bring about weight loss. Garcinia fruits have been used as a common natural food flavouring agent on the Malabar coast "for ages", the foundation says on its website. The research foundation says it has developed a unique soluble salt after extracting HCA acid from the Malabar tamarind, which not only lowers appetite but also helps control cholesterol, with no side-effects, including the 'rebound effect' which causes rapid weight gain after a weight loss. The salt, described as a “highly soluble, off-white, free flowing, amorphous, tasteless and extremely pure calcium salt of near-neutral pH with 75 percent HCA content”, is available under the name of Hydroxycitrisol. "Due to its soluble nature, Hydroxycitrisol can be readily incorporated into beverages, chocolates and other food formulations," the research foundation adds.
Source: IANS
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