Starch: advances in structure and function

Catch up with the latest developments in starch technology, chemistry and biochemistry and its role and use in foods.

Starch is the primary component of most plant storage organs - tubers, cereal grains and legume seeds - and supplies an essential food energy source for the global human population. It also contributes greatly to the structure (texture or viscosity) of a wide range of home-prepared and manufactured foods. Increased understanding of starch granule synthesis and behaviour in modern food processing is of vital importance to both manufacturers and consumers.

This book contains the papers presented at the second international conference Starch Structure and Function 2000 which was held to take stock of the latest developments in this area, and involved food technologists, nutritionists, chemists, biologists, geneticists and physicists. Papers in the book cover, for example:

• Starch structure / function relationships
• Modelling of starch extrusion and damage
• Processing-structure-rheology relationships
• Effect of granule structure on processing and properties
• Retrogradation kinetics of starch mixtures
• Effects of sugars on gelatinisation and retrogradation of corn starch
• Starch ethers obtained by microwaving: structure and functionality
• Amylopectin crystallisation
• Approaching granule structural analysis by genetic modification
• Health promoting function of resistant starches
• Biochemical aspects of starch production
• Genetic variation - effects on starch structure/function

The book also includes the abstracts of over 50 posters, a full subject index and an author index.

Hard cover - 223 pages