Starch and its types and role in foods

Starch, first noted in 170 BCE within Roman texts, is now a vital source of carbohydrates in human diets.

- Tamminana Jeeviteswara Rao, Vasugi Murugan, Akalya Shanmugamab

This granular biopolymer is abundant in cereals, legumes, tubers, and oilseeds. Starch is an incredibly versatile material that plays a crucial role in various industries. Its applications span the food sector, where it acts as an essential binder, it enhances quality by serving as a texture stabilizer, colloidal agent, gelling agent, bulking agent, and water retention agent. Embracing starch in these roles can significantly improve product performance and consistency.

While native starch has limited industrial uses due to poor processing properties, commercial starches are derived from seeds like corn, wheat, and rice, along with tubers such as potatoes and sweet potatoes. Various plants are harvested for starch based on geographic and climatic factors. Maize thrives in temperate regions, cassava and bananas in tropical areas, rice in flooded fields, and potatoes in cooler climates. Key starch sources include maize, rice, wheat, potatoes, cassava, bananas, yams, and sorghum. Corn starch is particularly prominent, making up about 80% of global starch production, extracted through a wet process that yields a starch content of 64-80%. This versatility makes it ideal for numerous food applications. Basic corn starch contains low protein (0.35%) and lipids (0.8%), while over 98% is made up of amylose and amylopectin.

Native starch and its disadvantages

Starches are alpha-glucans alpha-glucans primarily consisting of two homopolymers of D-glucose: amylose and amylopectin.

Amylose is typically recognized as a linear polymer formed from glucopyranose units linked by alpha-1,4-glycosidic bonds.