高圧力と澱粉

抄録

Effect of high pressure on starch, a major food component, is reviewed. When heated with sufficient water, starch granules absorb water and swell. This is termed heat gelatinization. Starch can be gelatinized by high pressure. Compared with heat gelatinization, “pressure gelatinization” is less clarified due to much shorter history of the research. Nevertheless, reports on the pressure gelatinization of different starches under various conditions (pressure, temperature, and water content) may give us insight into pressure gelatinization, which has been analyzed by X-ray diffractometry, differential scanning calorimetry, light microscopy, Fourier transformed infra-red spectoscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance and so forth. Although a systematic understanding of pressure gelatinization is still incomplete, some characteristic features of pressure gelatinization have been already clarified.