Cereal Chem. 73 (3):333-337  |  VIEW ARTICLE

Carbohydrates

Ghost Microstructures of Starch from Different Botanical Sources (1).

Mohamed Obanni and James N. BeMiller (2). (1) Journal paper 14,700 of the Purdue University Agricultural Experiment Station. (2) Whistler Center for Carbohydrate Research, Dept. of Food Science, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette, IN. Corresponding author. E-mail: <bemiller@foodsci.purdue.edu> Accepted January 23, 1996. Copyright 1996 by the American Association of Cereal Chemists, Inc. 

A technique applied to characterize the cooking and paste properties of various maize endosperm mutant starches was applied to potato, mung bean, and other cereal starches. This technique, which is based on cooking very dilute starch suspensions without shear and examination of the particulate products by light microscopy, confirmed that the pasting behavior of each starch and the nature of the discontinuous phase of the pastes formed under the conditions employed in the method are unique. Some groupings based on similar appearances of granule remnants were found to parallel the genetic background of the source plant. These groupings (wheat and barley; oats; rice; waxy rice; common maize, sorghum, popcorn, and millet; waxy maize and waxy sorghum), with respect to the cereal starches, are similar to those based on granule size and shape and the presence or absence of surface pores visible by scanning electron microscopy.