Food products, wheat starch

Starch is one of the most abimdant plant polysaccharides and is a major source of carbohydrates and energy in the human diet (Zobel and Stephen, 1995). Starch is the most widely used hydrocolloid in the food industry (Wanous, 2004), and is also a widely used industrial substrate polymer. Total annual world production of starch is approximately 60 million MT and it is predicted to increase by additional approximately 10 million MT by 2010 (FAO, 2006b LMC International, 2002 S. K. Patil and Associates, 2007). Com/maize Zea mays L.), cassava (also known as tapioca—Manihot escu-lenta Crantn.), sweet potato Ipomoea batatas L.), wheat Triticum aestivum L.), and potato Solanum tuberosum L.) are the major sources of starch, while rice Oryza sativa L.), barley Hordeum vulgare L.), sago Cycas spp.), arrowroot Tacca leontopetaloides (L.) Kimtze), buckwheat Fagopyrum esculentum Moench), etc. contribute in lesser amounts to total global production. 

Kovacova (1990) describes a method for the batch drying of fruit and vegetable pulp in a fluidized bed in which carrier particles (variously crystalline and caster sugar, dried skim milk, potato and wheat starch, apple powder, semolina or oat flakes), pre-moistened to a solids content of between 55% and 76%, are fed to a preheated fluidized bed and sprayed with the pulp to be dried. A product with a narrow particle size distribution and a uniform pulp content is claimed. Specific foods for which fluidized bed granulation has been used include potato puree (Zelenskaya and Filipenko, 1989) and granulated dried apple (Haida et al, 1994). 

Outside of the use of cellulose for papermaking, starch is the most widely used plant-derived carbohydrate for non-food uses. Around 60 million tonnes of raw starch are produced per year for food and non-food uses. The US accounts for most of the world s production, utilising starch from maize, which accounts for over 80% of world production. The starch market in the US is driven by the large isoglucose sweetener market and now increasingly by the growing bioethanol market, which uses maize as a fermentation feedstock. Europe derives most of its starch from wheat and potatoes, which account for 8% and 5% of world starch production, respectively. The other main source of starch is cassava (tapioca), produced in South East Asia. Small amounts of oat, barley and rice are also exploited for starch production. Many edible beans are also rich in starches, but are not commonly exploited for non-food uses. 

Wheat starch possesses a unique combination of properties that is important to its utilization in various food and industrial products. Those properties are related to its color, purity, flavor, paste viscosity, paste clarity, paste texture and gel strength.27 28,311-315... 

Wheat starch has been formulated in a variety of snack foods, whether they are extruded, expanded, microwaved or in the form of a stick or half products.570-574 In the case of yogurt or custard-type milk desserts, modified wheat starches were used for their thickening or gelling properties.575,576... 

The greatly enlarged chapter on wheat starch presents advances in its production, the differences between large and small granules, the fine structures of wheat starch amylose and amylopectin, genetic and chemical modification of wheat starch, and its functionalities and uses, especially in food products. 

Sorption of various gases (02, N2, C02, and He) on wheat flour, soybean flour, potato starch, and wheat starch has been investigated in order to study the effect of those gases on the functional properties of processed food products. Results indicate that such properties improved only after flour and starch were treated with chlorine.455,456 The adsorptivity of various gases by starch has been reexamined.457 Liquid ammonia quickly forms a gelatinous paste with starch.458 Tomasik et al.459 attempted to prepare inclusion complexes of starch with colloidal sulfur. A key result was that inclusion inside the starch matrix was only possible in small amounts because of the large relative size of the sulfur micelles. 

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