Abstract: | Cassava, sweet potato and arrowroot starches were hydrothermally modified by ANN under different conditions of temperature, moisture and time duration of treatment and the properties are compared. ANN brought about changes in swelling volume, solubility, gelatinization and rheological properties. The three starches behaved differently after the treatment. All the three tuber starches showed decrease in swelling volume after ANN treatment. The solubility decreased for cassava starch, whereas it slightly increased for majority of annealed sweet potato starches and significantly increased for arrowroot starch. For cassava starch, there was a decrease in peak viscosity, but for the other two starches, it increased after ANN. Differential scanning calorimetric studies showed that ANN resulted in a narrowing of DSC patterns for all the starches. The effect of ANN on the dynamic rheological properties was found to depend up on the source of starch. The modification resulted in increased gel hardness, gumminess, adhesiveness and decreased springiness for the starch gels. Tuber starches became less susceptible to enzyme action after ANN. |