Comparative study of native and modified starches isolated from conventional and nonconventional sources

Starch is a carbohydrate composed of chain of glucose molecule. Potato, corn, rice are the major sources for starch but they are also used as a food. Our aim was to extract starch from some nonconventional source like taro plant (Colocasia esculenta) and did some physical and chemical modification to enhance the properties of starch. Physical modification method of starch like Osmotic Pressure Treatment can change the morphological characteristics which clearly indicated the change into a folded structure after the treatment. Starch treated by cross-linking and acetylation methods to increase the properties like viscosity, swelling volume so that these starches can be used as food thickeners. Acetylated starches had shown high swelling and solubility, low gelatinization temperature which can be used commercially in food industry. In this study we showed that taro was the good source for starch extraction and native, modified taro starch can be commercially used as a food product.