ABSTRACT

Introduction ........................................................................................................ 471

Materials and Methods ..................................................................................... 472

Preparation of Starch Gels........................................................................ 472

Characterization of Starch Gels ............................................................... 473

Macroscopic Characterization ......................................................... 473

Structural Characterization .............................................................. 473

Microscopic Characterization .......................................................... 473

Molecular Characterization.............................................................. 474

Statistical Analysis ............................................................................. 474

Results.................................................................................................................. 474

Macroscopic Properties ............................................................................. 474

Structural Properties.................................................................................. 476

Microscopic Properties.............................................................................. 478

Molecular Properties ................................................................................. 481

Conclusions......................................................................................................... 481

Acknowledgments ............................................................................................. 481

References ........................................................................................................... 481

High pressure processing (HPP) is becoming a popular tool in food industry

not only to reduce microbial load but also to induce physical changes in the

constituents of food products. Starch gelatinization can be induced by HPP

at pressure .300 MPa (depending on starch type and HPP time). HPP-

induced gels were reported to maintain a somewhat intact granular struc-

ture and present a lower degree of retrogradation and of freezable water

(Ezaki and Hayashi, 1992; Stolt et al., 2001; Baik et al., 2003). Gels produced

by HPP are expected to develop different physico-chemical properties that

might account for the greater stability of these gels.