ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates the potential of the polymer science, or material science approach pioneered in the 1980s by various groups in the United States and the United Kingdom for understanding food systems behavior. The various steps in obtaining retrogradation rate constants that can be modeled within the framework of a polymer science approach are reviewed here, showing the effects of storage temperature, water, and possibly other plasticizing molecules on the kinetics of starch retrogradation in the concentrated system conditions contiguous to the glass-rubber transition region. The Lauritzen-Hoffman theory describing the growth of chain-folded polymer crystals may be applied to model the kinetics of starch retrogradation. The crystals formed during recrystallization of the amorphous form of the highly branched amylopectin molecule have many similarities. Farhat et al. offered a generalized hypothesis regarding the effect of sugars on the rate of starch retrogradation, an area where contradictory reports can be found in the literature.
