PRODUCTS OF THERMAL MODIFICATION OF STARCH FOR FOOD AND HEALTH

The rapid expansion of research into nutrition, the ongoing changes in people's lifestyle, and the increased social awareness of how important the right diet is to human health have led to the development of technologies for producing food that is beneficial to the physical and mental well-being of the consumers. This kind of food is termed functional food and encompasses, among others, products containing dietary fibre and prebiotics. The process of developing new fibres formulations has resulted in increased interest in the products of physical (mainly thermal) and chemical modification of starch, which could be a source of type 4 resistant starch (RS4). The objective of the present study was: to produce starch preparations with a higher content of the fraction inaccessible to human digestive enzymes by the combination of two factors responsible for starch resistance (temperature and chemical modification), to examine the possible connections between the method of producing of starch preparations, their structure and their resistance to enzymatic digestion, to apply enzyme-resistant starch preparations as products with potential prebiotic properties, selectively stimulated growth and activity of beneficial bacteria, and not contributed to growth of undesirable intestinal microflora.