Progress 07/01/23 to 06/30/24
Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience for this work is the food industry, including member companies of the Whistler Center for Carbohydrate Research, other scholars working in this area, disciplinary journals, and ultimately the consumer, all of whom we anticipate benefitting from the opportunity for strategically formulating foods using the modified starches and formulation strategies being developed in this work. This first year of the project reached member companies fo the Whistler Center for Carbohydrate Research.. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?This first year of the project was a buidling year, with transfer of knowledge from a current graduate student completing his degree to a newly hired graduate student whose work will be dedicated to this project. The students learned the techniques to be used initially to address objectives 1 and 3 of the project, and engaged with the Whistler Center for Carbohydrate Research member companies during campus events (meetings, poster session). How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?In this first year, engagementand dissemination has been limited to presentations and discussions on campus and with Whistler Center for Carbohydrate Research member companies. Plans for upcoming years as the project progresses will spread outward, including publication, presentation, and application for patent. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?A second graduate student will be hired to build the team, which will then expand work from objectives 1 and 3 on to objective 2 and then objective 4. Year 2 of the project will primarily focus on the first 3 project objectives. Efforts will focus primarily on wheat and corn starches, with some inclusion of tapioca starch, expanding from examination of functional differences to also include structural analyses. Effects of different classes of guest molecules (sugars vs. salts) will be investigated as part of objective 2, understanding the thermodynamics of the interactions and resulting effects on starch structure and functionality. These studies will be written up as manuscripts and submitted for publication when ready. A patent application will also be pursued.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
This first year of the project was a buidling year, with transfer of knowledge from a current graduate student completing his degree to a newly hired graduate student whose work will be dedicated to this project. Together, they made good progress on objectives 1 and 3, and related publications are in the pipeline. A second graduate student will be hired in year 2 of the project to further efforts to address all 4 objectives. For objectives 1 and 3, the students focused first on investigating the effects of a variety of small guest molecules (sugars, oligosaccharides, salts, vitamins)on wheat starch, exploring guest molecule type and concentration effects on the functionality of the wheat starch in the solutions of the guest molecules, followed by preconditioning the wheat starch in the guest molecule solutions in different temperature environments for different lengths of time (hydrothermal treatments) to create the starch-guest inclusion complexes (physically modified starch). These modified starches were then subjected to the same differential scanning calorimetry and rapid visco analysis methods to determine how the hydrothermal treatments affected the starch functionality. Initial studies were then carried out using other starch types: tapioca and several varieties of corn starch (dent, waxy, high amylose) to compare how the different starch types responded to the guest molecule hydrothermal treatments. Results indicate that the type and concentration of the guest molecule, as well as the conditions used in hydrothermal treatment, all affect starch functionality, with small differences in gelatinization temperature and wide ranges in swelling and pasting behaviors. These differences in functionality indicate that the starch granule-guest inclusion complexes (physically modified starch in which the native granule structure contains internalized guest molecules) have promising applications in a variety of food products - the type of complex could be strategically selected for the desired starch functionality in the product under consideration (cake, cookie, sauce, etc.).
Publications
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