Studies on the Rice cultivars starch gel physico-chemical and functional character

What is it about?

The demand of starch from rice in India has been increased due to availability of broken rice at low cost. Rice starches possess some novel and unique attributes over other starches that enables its uses in various food applications. The effect of time and temperature on the starch gel characteristics and texture has been explored by researchers in order to select the desired starches for specific product. Rice starch with desirable rheological properties is used in number of food products possessing specific characteristics. The starches from these traditional rice cultivars were observed to have novel characteristic as compared to other cultivars in terms of their solubility, syneresis, turbidity and rheological characteristics. Considering the excellent characteristics of these rice cultivars this research helps to allure industrialist, motivate government and other agencies to encourage farmers to increase their land areas under rice cultivation in order to cover increasing demand of starch. The starch yield in most of the analyzed rice cultivars was found to be much greater with highest degree of whiteness and purity. The lowest syneresis of the starch gels as revealed in this research work enables its uses in diverse of food products. It was found that starch with higher amylose content showed higher values for hardness of starch gels. Starch gels with higher hardness were found to be coupled with higher values of gumminess and chewiness. Starch with higher amylose content in the present starches depicted lower water solubility, higher swelling power and lowest syneresis. The interaction between starch granules and their rigidity upon heating process determine the rheological properties of starch. Overall the variation in the results could be due structural differences and due to differences in phospholipids content present in every rice starch. Amylose content of starch was found to have a significant effect on the different properties of starch determined in this research. The varietal differences of the experimental rice cultivars resulted into variations in different functional, textural and rheological properties of these starches.

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Why is it important?

Texture determines the consumer acceptability of cooked rice and being a multidimensional characteristic perceived and sensed by human beings. Gel consistency is a measure of cooked rice texture, which is found to vary in rice from soft to hard. Rice having soft gel consistency is tender and soft after cooking. Cooking of rice also gives an indication of the consumption of fuel required during cooking process . Rice starch with desirable rheological properties is used in number of food products possessing specific characteristics. Rheological properties of starch are affected by its amylose content, lipid contents and branch chain length distribution of amylopectin.

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