Starch is known to be the main component of cereal grains and roots and when it undergoes physical, chemical or enzymatic modifications, this starch has increased functionality and is given a new name called ‘modified starch’. Food materials which have modified food starch as the main ingredient are called convenience products. Native starches experience heat-treatment processes like annealing treatments and heat-moisture that lead to no damage to granular integrity and show increased visco-stability and consistency. All thanks to the advanced modified starch technology that modified starches are not limited to food industry applications only; even paper and textile industries are reaping the benefits of using modified starch.

Modified starch, also known as starch derivatives, performs the role of a thickening agent, emulsifier and stabilizer in food products, as a disintegrant in pharmaceuticals or binder in coated paper. As the most flexible food ingredient, native starch can become more useful by adding value through modification procedures. Chemically modified starch derivatives add a great extent of technological value to both food and non-food industries. In this blog, we shall look at some of the important facts about modified starch and its products.

Why is native starch modified?

Native starch undergoes modification procedures to overcome one or more flaws like reduced viscosity or minimal thickening power upon cooking, retrogradation features or syneresis as commonly found in native starches. Modification processes improve native starch (derived from wheat, corn, maize, potato or tapioca) and help to develop special traits like increased ability to bring structure and texture to the food in which modified starch is used. Modified starch is particularly beneficial when used in food products that follow specific preparation techniques.

What are the various modifications commonly employed to native starches?

Over the years, several procedures have been developed to modify native starches. These techniques are known to alter the starch polymer, the main component in native starches, becoming highly flexible with better attributes and increased value. Starch modification procedures can be classified into:

Physical – This reduces the size of the starch granules and also improve its power if water solubility. Physical modification is done by using various temperature combinations, pressure, irradiation, moisture and shear. Native starch experiencing physical modifications do not require biological or chemical agents. Some of the various types of physical modification are pre-gelatinization, annealing, hydrothermal treatment and non-hydrothermal modification. Other physical modification types include grinding and extrusion.

Chemical – Chemically modifications introduce significant changes in retrogradation, starch behaviour, gelatinization capacity and paste characteristics. Some of the ways to chemically modify starch and obtain value-added chemically modified starch products are cross-linking, cationization, acetylation, oxidation, acid hydrolysis and dual modification. All of these chemical modification procedures are known to provide the required results like reduced starch granule size and paste viscosity, improved swelling and viscose capacities, enhanced resistance to enzymatic action, highly porous granule surface, more solubility and increased granule density.

Native starch after modifying, what are the various applications in the food industry?

Modified starch plays a crucial role in the food industry.

• It is used in bread making. Combining with wheat protein, modified starch give structure to the bread upon cooling.

• Modified starch is increasingly used in textile industries as stiffening agents.

• Depending on the type of modification carried out, modified starch is also used in the drug delivery system. For example: a study revealed the biocompatibility of starch in targeting cancer cells. And so phosphate-modified starch was used to produce iron oxide nanoparticle and then mixed with mitoxantrone. Finally, a medicine to kill the cancer cells!

Conclusion: Modified starch products provide a wide number of benefits to both the consumers and manufacturers. Using state-of-the-art modified starch technology, starch companies are investing more in value-added starch derivatives that are blessed with abundant functional and nutritional properties. Nevertheless, it is predicted that the modified starch market is going to expand further with increasing demands for modified starch products. So, it is high time you get ready to be a part of this big competition!