International Journal of Biological Macromolecules 95 (2017) 314320

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International Journal of Biological Macromolecules

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijbiomac

Modication of foxtail millet starch by combining physical, chemical

and enzymatic methods
Ashim Dey, Nandan Sit
Department of Food Engineering and Technology, Tezpur University, Assam 784028, India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Modication of foxtail millet starch was carried out by heat moisture treatment (HT), acid hydrolysis
Received 31 October 2016 (AH), enzymatic treatment (EH), Ultrasound treatment (UT) and their combinations. A total of 15 modied
Received in revised form starches were prepared by combining the various methods and properties were compared with native
15 November 2016
starch. The solubilities of the starches modied by HT were found to decrease whereas for other single
Accepted 19 November 2016
modications it increased. It also increased with number of modications applied. The swelling power
Available online 21 November 2016
decreased for all the modied starches and a decrease in swelling power was observed with increase
in number of modications. Freeze-thaw stability improved for starches modied by single physical
Keywords:
Foxtail millet starch
modications i.e. HT and UT. Decrease in viscosities was observed for the modied starches and was
Heat moisture treatment particularly affected by AH. The pasting temperature was found to increase for those modied starches
Acid hydrolysis where HT was carried out. The modied starches gave softer gels.
Enzymatic treatment 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Ultrasound treatment
Combined modication

1. Introduction modication by heat moisture treatment leads to interactions and

Foxtail millet is minor millet and is generally cultivated in semi-
arid regions of Eurasia [13]. It is underutilized and primarily used
as food and forage. The water requirement for this crop is low and
can be grown in soil poor in organic matter content without irriga-
tion or chemical fertilizer [2,4]. It can be planted as a second crop
after wheat or barley because of its short life cycle and can also
be grown as mixed crop with chilli, rice, sesame and mustard [4].
Starch is the major component of foxtail millet grain. Apart from
starch, protein and lipids are also present in substantial amounts.
A small amount of free sugar and non-starchy polysaccharides are
also present [1,5].
Starch is extensively used as a raw material in various indus-
tries like textile, food, pharmaceutical and paper industries. Native
starch has very limited use in industries. Modied starches with
specic properties can be produced by physical, chemical or
enzymatic methods to suit various applications [6]. Chemical mod-
ication by acid treatment breaks the glycosidic linkages of the
-glucan chains thereby affecting the structure and properties
of native starch. Acid treatment can be used to produce starch
nano-crystals, which is gaining attention in recent times. Physical
re-associations of amylose and amylopectin chains, which affects
the properties of native starch. Ultrasound can also be used as a
physical method to modify the properties of native starches. Phys-
ical modications are supposed to be environmental friendly and
are healthier options for consumers as compared to chemical and
enzymatic modications [7]. Enzymatic methods also impart novel
properties to the native starches suitable for specic applications
[6,7]. As starch is the major component of foxtail millet grain, it can
be extracted and its potential for industrial use can be exploited.
Native and modied starches from millets have been mostly used
in non-food industries and their reported food applications are
much scarce [7]. There are reports of starch modication from var-
ious millets like pearl millet [8], nger millet [911] and sorghum
[1214], but there are no reports on modication of starch from
foxtail millet. Also there are very limited studies on native foxtail
millet starch [1,1517]. Therefore, the present study was carried
out to study the physicochemical properties of native starch and
the effect of various methods of modication like heat moisture
treatment, acid hydrolysis, enzymatic treatment and ultrasound
treatment and their combinations on some functional properties
of foxtail millet starch so that their application in food could be
explored.

Corresponding author.
E-mail address: nandansit@yahoo.co.in (N. Sit).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2016.11.067
0141-8130/ 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
 A. Dey, N. Sit / International Journal of Biological Macromolecules 95 (2017) 314320 315

2. Materials and methods Table 1

Sequence and type of modication of foxtail millet starch carried out.

2.1. Starch isolation Sl No. Sample Name Type of modication

1 N NT
Foxtail millet (Setaria italica) seeds were collected from local 2 M1 HT
farm in Tripura, India. The millet was made into our using labo- 3 M2 AH
ratory grinder (Philips HL1632, India). Starch was extracted as per 4 M3 ET
5 M4 UT
the method described by Bangoura et al. [18]. Briey, our of fox-
6 M5 HT AH
tail millet (100 g) was soaked in 350 ml of 0.5% NaOH for 1 h with 7 M6 HT ET
stirring and was centrifuged at 3000 rpm for 10 min. The sediment 8 M7 HT UT
was washed twice with distilled water and centrifuged. The pH of 9 M8 AH ET
10 M9 AH UT
the sediment was adjusted to 6.5 using 1 M HCl and the resultant
11 M10 ET UT
slurry was further centrifuged. The upper brown layer of the sedi- 12 M11 HT AH ET
ment was removed carefully and the sediment was again washed 13 M12 HT AH UT
with distilled water and centrifuged at 3000 rpm for 10 min. The 14 M13 HT ET UT
sediment thus obtained was then dried at 50 C for 24 h. The dried 15 M14 AH ET UT
16 M15 HT AH ET UT
starch was then ground using pestle and mortar and passed through
100 mesh sieve and packed in air tight container for further use. NT- Native Starch; HT- Heat Moisture Treatment; AH Acid Hydrolysis; ET- Enzy-
matic Treatment; UT- Ultrasound treatment.

2.2. Heat moisture treatment (HT)

2.6. Starch modication by combination of different treatment

Modication by heat moisture treatment (HT) was carried out

After the starch was modied by the methods described above
by the method described by Collado et al. [19]. Appropriate amount
the starch was further modied by combination of various meth-
of water was added to the starch sample (dry basis) and conditioned
ods described above. After each modication the modied starches
to 25% moisture content by sealing it in LDPE bags and keeping at
were dried to 8% moisture content and then it was modied by
4 C for 8 h. The sample was shaken occasionally. Then the starch
another method. The sequence and type of modication carried
sample was taken out from the LDPE bags and placed in a baking pan
out is presented in Table 1. A total of 16 types of starches were
with cover for 3 h at 110 C. The baking pan containing sample was
produced including one native starch.
shaken occasionally for the even distribution of heat throughout the
sample and then cooled to room temperature followed by drying
2.7. Chemical composition
at 50 C and then sealed in airtight container for further use.
The moisture, fat, ash and crude bre content of the isolated
2.3. Acid hydrolysis native starch was determined by AOAC methods [21]. Protein
content (N 6.5) was determined by Kjeldahl method [22]. The
The method of Wang and Wang [20] was followed with slight amylose content was determined by colorimetric method [23]. Esti-
modications. starch slurry (40% starch w/w) was prepared by dis- mation of starch content was carried out by Anthrones method
persing starch in 0.14 N HCl solution. The reaction was allowed for [24].
8 h in a water bath at 50 C. The pH of the slurry was then adjusted
to 5.5 with 1 N NaOH and the slurry was washed thrice with dis- 2.8. Swelling and solubility
tilled water prior to ltration. Treated starch was dried overnight
in a hot air oven at 50 C. Swelling power and solubility of the starches were determined
by modied method of Torruco-Uco and Betancur-Ancona [25].
Starch (0.5 g) was dispersed in 20 ml distilled water in a pre-
2.4. Enzymatic hydrolysis
weighed 50 ml centrifuge tubes and kept in shaking water bath at
90 C for 30 min. The suspension was then centrifuged at 12,000 g
Enzyme modied starch was prepared according to the method
for 10 min. The supernatant was carefully decanted in a Petri dish
described by Sahnoun et al. [6] with some modications. Fungal -
and dried at 103 C for 12 h. After decantation the weight swollen
amylase derived from Aspergillus oryzae (HiMedia, Mumbai) having
granules were taken. The swelling power and percentage solubility
enzyme activity of 2000 U/g was used for modication. Starch-
were calculated using the following formulas:
enzyme suspension (100 ml containing 10% starch w/v and 0.1%
enzyme w/v)) was incubated with 0.04 M acetate buffer at pH 4.7 Swelling Power = Weight of swollen granules 100/(Weight of
at 37 C for 90 min. Reaction was stopped by heating the suspension
sample Weight of dissolved starch)
at 70 C for 10 min and then cooled to room temperature. After incu-
bation starch suspension was washed thrice with distilled water,
centrifuged at 3000 rpm for 10 min and subsequently dried at 50 C
in hot air oven for overnight.
% Solubility = Weight of dried starch in Petri dish 100/Sample
2.5. Ultrasound treatment weight

Ultrasound treatment was carried out using ultrasound bath

(Model: LMUC-2A, Labman Scientic Instruments Pvt. Ltd., Chen-
nai, India). Starch suspension (200 ml, 30%) was prepared and
subjected to ultrasound treatment for 20 min at 40 kHz. After the
treatment the suspension was centrifuged at 3000 rpm for 10 min
and the sediment dried overnight in a hot air oven at 50 C.
2.9. Freeze-thaw stability
Freeze-thaw stability was determined by the method of Kaur,
Singh, & Singh [26]. Starch (5%, w/w and the total weight was 20 g)
316 A. Dey, N. Sit / International Journal of Biological Macromolecules 95 (2017) 314320
aqueous suspension was heated at 95 C temperature in water bath
with constant agitation for 1 h. Weighed paste was taken in to cen-
trifuge tubes and capped tightly. Paste was centrifuged (1000 rpm
for 10 min) to remove free water. Supernatant was decanted and
starch paste was subjected to three freeze thaw cycles and subse-
quently followed by the centrifugation (4000 rpm for 30 min) every
time. Alternately freezing and thawing was performed by freezing
for 24 h at 18 C deep freezer and immediately thawing for 4 h at
30 C. Water separated after each cycles was measured in terms of
percent syneresis.
2.10. Pasting properties
Pasting properties of the starches were evaluated using Rapid
Visco-Analyzer (RVA), model StarchMaster2 from Newport Scien-
tic (Australia). Viscosity proles were recorded using 12.5% starch
slurry in distilled water (total weight 28 g). A heating and cooling
cycle of 13 min was used where the samples were heated from 50
to 95 C in 5 min, held at 95 C for 2 min, cooled from 95 to 50 C in
4 min and held at 50 C for 2 min. Pasting temperature (PT), peak
viscosity (PV), hold viscosity (HV), nal viscosity (FV), breakdown
viscosity (BV) and setback viscosity (SV) were recorded from the
graph.
2.11. Texture analysis
Texture properties were measured as per the method described
by Sit et al. [27]. Textural properties such as rmness, consistency
and cohesiveness of starch pastes were determined by back extru-
sion method in Texture Analyzer, TA.HDplus (Stable Micro Systems,
UK) using a cylindrical probe (P-35). Starch pastes were prepared by
heating a 2% aqueous suspension of starch (1 g starch in 50 ml dis-
tilled water) in a shaking water bath at 100 C for 30 min. The starch
pastes were cooled to 25 C for determining the textural properties.
The probe was allowed to penetrate 20 mm from the surface of the
sample at a speed of 1 mm/s. Firmness, cohesiveness, consistency
and index of viscosity were calculated from the graphs using the
software Exponent Lite 32 provided with the instrument. The tex-
tural properties of the soup samples were analysed by the same
method.
2.12. Colour analysis (dry powders)
Colour parameters of the starch (dry powders) were measured
using colorimeter (Ultrascan VIS, Hunterlab, USA). Results were
obtained in terms of L* (lightness), ranging from 0 (black) to 100
(white), a* (redness), ranging from +60 (red) to 60 (green) and b*
(yellowness), ranging from +60 (yellow) to 60 (blue) values.
2.13. Statistical analysis
The data were subjected to single factor analysis of variance
(ANOVA) using Data Analysis Tool of Microsoft Excel. Fishers
Least Signicant Difference (LSD) method was used to determine
the statistical difference between the results obtained.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Chemical composition and amylose content of foxtail millet
starch
The moisture content of native starch was found to be
8.59 0.46% (wet basis, n = 3). The ash content was 0.47 0.18%
(dry basis, n = 3) which was found to be higher than that observed
by Wankhede et al. [15] but were comparable to that found by
Bangoura et al. (2012) which was 0.72%. The starch content of the
extracted starch was 91.54 1.24% (dry basis, n = 3). The starch con-
tent of the extracted starch was found to be quite high indicating its
purity and therefore can be regarded as a potential source of starch
in food and other industrial applications. The protein content of
the extracted starch was 0.52 0.0% (dry basis, n = 3) which is very
low and this value is also lower compared to those found by Ban-
goura et al. [18] and Wankhede et al. [15]. The fat content was found
to be 0.06 0.01% (dry basis, n = 3). Wankhede et al. [15] reported
the lipid content of foxtail starch as 1.2% (dry basis) which is quite
high compared to the present ndings. The crude bre content
was 0.07 0.01% (dry basis) which is very low, but the total car-
bohydrate content was observed to be 95.11 0.78% (n = 3) which
implies that the extracted starch contains certain amount of solu-
ble bre as well. The amylose content of the extracted starch was
found to be 18.27 0.48% (n = 3). Fujita et al. [1] observed wide vari-
ation in the amylose contents from 11.4 to 27.1% of 46 non-waxy
varieties investigated by them. Similar ranges were also reported
by other authors [15,28,29].
3.2. Swelling and solubility of native and modied starches
The solubility and swelling of the native and modied starches
are presented in Table 2. It was observed that the solubilities of
the modied starches increased in almost all cases except for M1,
M5 and M6 where heat moisture treatment was used as method
of modication either alone (M1) or dual modied in combination
with other methods (M5 and M6). A similar decrease in solubility
upon heat moisture treatment was observed by Adebowale et al.
[30] for African yam bean. It was further noted that the starches
modied by physical methods like HT or UT alone or dual modied
in combination with other methods, the increase in solubility was
not signicantly different from the solubility of native starch. Sim-
ilar results were obtained by Olayinka et al. [31] for heat moisture
treated sorghum starch. The reason for negligible change in solu-
bility with physical methods could be that when physical methods
are applied, the degradation of starch granules is far less com-
pared to chemical or enzymatic methods. Also, rearrangement of
the degraded starch molecules takes place during physical modi-
cation method which decreases its solubility [32]. For the starches
modied by combining three or more methods (M11 to M15) the
solubilities were signicantly higher than that of native starch as
degradation of the starch granules is much more when subsequent
modications were applied.
The swelling of the modied starches were found to be sig-
nicantly lower than that of the native starch and the swelling
decreased further with the number of modications increased.
Lowest swelling of 4.87 g/g was observed when all the four methods
of modication were combined together. The reason for decrease
in swelling power with modication of starch could be attributed
to the disruption of the granule structure which reduces the water
binding capacity of the starch molecules. When more than one type
of modication was applied the disruption was more which fur-
ther reduced water binding capacity and thereby swelling power.
A decrease in swelling value and increase in solubilty for acid and
enzyme treated pearl millet starch was also observed by Balasub-
ramanian et al. [8].
3.3. Colour of native and modied starches
Signicant reduction in lightness of the modied starch pow-
ders were found compared to native starch (Table 2). The a* and b*
values were also found to be lower for the modied starches. This
shows that on one hand the modied starches became darker as
well as the redness and yellowness also decreased. The reason for
such result might be attributed to the fact that due to the modi-
cation treatment the double helical structure of the amylopectin
 A. Dey, N. Sit / International Journal of Biological Macromolecules 95 (2017) 314320 317

Table 2
Solubility, swelling and colour values of native and modied starches.

Sample Name Solubility at 90 C Swelling at 90 C Colour Parameters

L a b

N 9.60 0.15 8.89 0.52 76.20 1.25 1.25 0.52 6.08 0.61
M1 8.00 0.23 7.49 0.23 62.22 2.23 0.68 0.12 4.96 0.12
M2 11.20 0.14 7.99 0.43 64.49 1.25 0.77 11 4.03 0.15
M3 10.60 0.09 8.52 0.16 66.60 1.56 1.19 0.15 5.47 0.16
M4 9.66 0.28 8.20 0.15 60.33 2.14 1.11 0.09 5.96 0.09
M5 8.68 0.34 8.44 0.08 59.93 2.34 0.74 0.15 4.30 0.15
M6 9.18 0.12 7.35 0.24 64.42 2.78 0.78 0.23 7.41 0.42
M7 10.34 0.42 7.95 0.16 64.27 1.54 0.83 0.08 5.15 0.56
M8 11.36 0.56 8.32 0.28 68.81 0.92 1.22 0.15 5.67 0.24
M9 9.81 0.25 8.90 0.34 63.31 0.54 1.25 0.14 5.79 0.98
M10 9.92 0.18 7.87 0.15 60.87 0.98 0.94 0.27 4.76 0.53
M11 10.70 0.52 6.27 0.42 61.31 1.56 0.75 0.12 4.75 0.18
M12 10.52 0.23 6.29 0.39 66.40 2.43 1.17 0.14 5.56 0.26
M13 10.53 0.17 6.29 0.15 67.93 2.15 0.85 0.19 5.17 0.21
M14 10.88 0.41 6.88 0.24 66.67 3.14 1.18 0.08 5.33 0.36
M15 11.54 0.25 4.87 0.12 62.95 1.11 0.83 0.14 4.74 0.13
Fishers LSD Valuea 0.51 0.47 3.13 0.32 0.66

Values reported as Mean S.D. of three replications.

a
Signicant differences within a column can be calculated from LSD value in that column.

molecules were disrupted which allowed formation of complexes
with the impurities like protein, lipids and bres present in the
starch samples. As the impurities which were responsible for red-
ness and yellowness of the starch samples, when they got involved
in formation of complex with the starch molecules, a reduction
in a* and b* values were also observed. A reduction in L* values
was observed by Sit, Misra, & Deka [33] for ultrasonically treated
taro starch and Balasubramanian et al. [8] for heat moisture treated
pearl millet starch.
3.4. Freeze-thaw stability of native and modied starches
It was found that the freeze-thaw stability of the HT and UT
starch pastes, that is the starches modied by physical treatments
were found to be better than that of native starches and starches
modied by AH and ET (Fig. 1). Balsubramanian et al. [8] observed
a decrease in syneresis on acid and enzyme modied pearl millet
starch and almost similar freeze-thaw stability with heat moisture
treatment, whereas Thys et al. [34] reported a decrease in freeze-
thaw stability of acid thinned pinhao and corn starches, and Sit
et al. [33] observed better freeze-thaw stability with ultrasonica-
tion for taro starches. Lee et al. [35] reported a signicant increase
in syneresis of rice starch gel with an increase in the concentra-
tion of pullulanase used for enzymatic modication. For the dual
modied starches it was observed that the freeze-thaw stability
decreased for all the dual modied starches, even for the starches
modied by dual physical modication i.e. M7. The reason for bet-
ter freeze thaw stability of physically modied starches is that the
re-association of the degraded starch molecules takes place dur-
ing modication only and also the extent of degradation is less,
and when solution made from such starches is frozen less water is
expelled as there is limited re-association during freezing. On the
other hand, for ET and AH starches the larger amylopectin chains
are degraded to a higher extent and this broken chains holds water
in the solution, and when such a solution is frozen the degraded
molecules re-associates expelling larger amounts of water [36].
The freeze-thaw stability of the starches modied by two or more
methods was found to be less than native and physically modied
starches. Even for starch modied by dual physical modication the
freeze-thaw stability was less than native and starches modied by
single physical method i.e. HT and UT. This might be due to the fact

60

a
50
b a
c b bc a
c
40 d d b dd d
de
de dd e bc
% Syneresis

e ef c e
fg c g
h d d d
h def f Cycle 1
30 g e e fg e ef
h
f Cycle 2
i
g
20 h Cycle 3

10

0
N M1 M2 M3 M4 M5 M6 M7 M8 M9 M10 M11 M12 M13 M14 M15
Starch Sample

Fig. 1. Freeze-thaw stability of native and modied starches. Similar small letters above the bars denote values that are not signicantly different (p < 0.05) between samples
for same freeze-thaw cycle.
318 A. Dey, N. Sit / International Journal of Biological Macromolecules 95 (2017) 314320

Table 3
Pasting parameters of native and modied starches.

Sample Name PT, cP PV, cP HV, cP FV, cP BV, cP SV, cP

N 81.6 0.02 2254 134 1651 95 2734 312 603 42 1083 54

M1 82.5 0.08 1877 142 1498 65 3095 210 379 15 1597 87
M2 81.4 0.10 1470 95 738 48 1415 145 732 46 677 45
M3 81.4 0.05 2177 123 1547 78 2771 156 630 12 1224 21
M4 80.9 0.03 2412 105 1600 109 2658 248 812 36 1058 23
M5 83.5 0.09 731 57 249 26 546 95 482 25 297 56
M6 87 0.03 1548 152 1397 132 2250 149 151 47 853 54
M7 84.6 0.01 1136 213 750 107 1422 142 386 12 672 58
M8 81.8 0.04 1395 106 642 63 1063 102 753 15 421 21
M9 81.2 0.02 1483 24 621 45 994 97 862 14 373 54
M10 80.6 0.08 2388 321 1761 102 3140 245 627 85 1379 53
M11 85 0.05 1764 159 1534 154 1774 156 230 32 1240 78
M12 86.7 0.07 1104 152 796 127 1220 235 308 14 424 14
M13 86.8 0.07 1580 106 1448 165 2268 247 132 74 820 56
M14 81.0 0.03 1505 148 570 49 999 106 935 45 429 28
M15 87.1 0.09 372 32 139 21 319 52 233 65 180 34
Fishers LSD Valuea 0.10 243.31 160.70 303.86 70.95 83.59

Values reported as Mean S.D. of three replications.

a
Signicant differences within a column can be calculated from LSD value in that column.

that extent of degradation of the starch molecules were more for
the starches modied by two or more methods compared to single
physical modication thereby increasing the syneresis after freeze-
thaw cycle. The least freeze-thaw stability was observed for M15
which is modied by all four methods implying that the amount of
degradation is much higher compared to other modications.
3.5. Pasting properties of native and modied starches
The pasting properties of the native and modied starches are
presented in Table 3. It was observed that for single modica-
tion the pasting temperature (PT) of the starch modied by HT
was signicantly higher than native starch and for the other single
modied starch viz. M2, M3 and M4 the PT was not signicantly dif-
ferent. Even for the dual and other modied starches (M5 to M15)
it was observed that PT was signicantly higher for those starches
where HT was used as method of modication (M5, M6, M7, M11,
M12, M13 and M15) and for the other modied starches PT was not
signicantly different from native starch. The increase in PT due to
HT could be attributed to the re-association of the starch molecules
during modication [36]. The peak viscosity (PV), hold viscosity
(HV) and nal viscosity (FV) of the starch modied by AH (M3)
was found to be much lower compared to native and other single
modied starches. Decrease in viscosities of various acid-thinned
corn starches was also reported by Sandhu et al. [37]. For the sin-
gle modied starches it was observed that the PV of M4 was found
to be more than native starch whereas the FV of M2 was found to
be more than native starch. The pasting properties of the starches
modied by ET and UT were not signicantly different from that
of native starch. For the other starches modied by two or more
methods it was found that where one of the methods used is ET or
UT the pasting properties were closer to that of native starch. High-
est FV was observed for M10 where dual modication was carried
out by ET and UT. The modied starches where one of the methods
of modication is AH showed lower values of pasting properties.
Lower values of PV, HV and FV of the starches modied by AH might
be possibly due to degradation of the larger amylopectin chains
as well as amylose molecules due to extensive hydrolysis by acid
[37]. The smaller chains thus produced caused increased degree of
amylose recrystallization which resulted in viscosity change of acid
hydrolysed starch as the amylose double helices did not melt dur-
ing heating procedure and the starch particles might become more
resistant to swelling [38]. Lowest values of PV, HV and FV of 372, 139
and 319 respective were shown by M15 where all the four meth-
ods of modication were applied indicating extensive degradation
of the starch molecules.
3.6. Texture of native and modied starch pastes
The hardness of the modied starch pastes were found to be
lower compared to the native starch paste. The hardness decreased
as the number of modication applied to a starch increased. The
pastes of starches modied by single and dual methods were found
to be closer to that of native starch with starch paste made from
M3 i.e. starch modied by ET being the hardest among the modied
starch pastes. The hardness of the solutions of starches modied by
three or more methods (M11M15) were found to be signicantly
lower than other starch pastes with starch paste made from M15
being the softest. Mehboob et al. [13] observed similar decrease in
hardness of acid thinned and succinylated sorghum starch and the
gel hardness decreased with increase in extent of acid hydrolysis.
Sahnoun et al. [6] obtained cake with softer texture when native
corn starch was replaced by enzyme hydrolysed and acetylated
starch. This shows that modication of starch forms softer pastes
and the softness increases as the number of modication applied
to a native starch increases. The decrease in hardness could be
attributed to the reduction in the chain length of the longer amy-
lopectin and amylose chain [13]. The consistencies of the starch
pastes were also lower than native starch paste and consistency
decreased with increase in number of modication, irrespective of
the type of modication. The cohesiveness of the modied starch
pastes were more compared to native starch paste and no particu-
lar trend was observed with number or type of modication carried
out. This shows that the inter-molecular bondings between the
starch molecules were greater in case of the modied starches and
the water molecules were loosely held. This is the reason the hard-
ness and consistencies of the starch pastes prepared using modied
starches were lower than that of native starch. The indexes of vis-
cosity of the modied starch pastes were also found to be greater
than native starch paste. This shows that the rate of change of vis-
cosity of the modied starch pastes were higher than native starch
paste. The reason for this might be attributed to the fact that when
the starch pastes were heated the inter-molecular bonds were bro-
ken and new bonds with water molecules were formed thereby
increasing the viscosity with temperature (Table 4).
 A. Dey, N. Sit / International Journal of Biological Macromolecules 95 (2017) 314320 319

Table 4
Texture properties of native and modied starches.

Sample Name Hardness, g Consistency, g.s Cohesiveness, g Index of Viscosity, g.s

N 11.91 0.09 339.59 1.21 5.40 0.11 1.26 0.05

M1 11.10 0.05 285.04 1.06 6.81 0.05 1.93 0.02
M2 10.98 0.10 286.52 0.98 7.07 0.12 2.45 0.07
M3 11.67 0.11 310.79 0.65 7.30 0.14 2.98 0.08
M4 10.97 0.07 296.84 0.48 7.56 0.01 2.71 0.11
M5 10.54 0.08 293.3 0.87 7.11 0.14 2.41 0.14
M6 10.70 0.15 295.71 0.25 7.08 0.18 2.21 0.08
M7 10.61 0.05 283.36 0.19 6.99 0.15 2.15 0.04
M8 10.70 0.17 289.42 0.29 7.03 0.13 2.38 0.08
M9 10.77 0.13 288.56 0.18 7.43 0.12 2.65 0.12
M10 10.52 0.08 287.00 0.54 6.54 0.05 2.24 0.09
M11 10.34 0.09 284.33 0.32 7.15 0.08 2.57 0.11
M12 10.35 0.07 283.44 0.65 6.93 0.12 2.66 0.12
M13 10.10 0.08 283.01 0.75 6.81 0.08 2.46 0.04
M14 10.11 0.09 282.45 1.12 7.09 0.09 2.70 0.03
M15 10.07 0.05 282.33 0.67 6.73 0.11 2.17 0.07
Fishers LSD valuea 0.16 1.19 0.19 0.14

Values reported as Mean S.D. of three replications.

a
Signicant differences within a column can be calculated from LSD value in that column.

4. Conclusions
In the present investigation foxtail millet starch was modied
by heat moisture treatment, acid hydrolysis, enzymatic treatment
and ultrasound treatment. The starch was modied by combining
two or more of the methods also. Wide differences in the proper-
ties in the modied starches were observed depending on the type
of modication as well as number of modication. It was observed
that physical modications like HT or UT improved the freeze-thaw
stability whereas AH and ET increased the solubilities. The swelling
power decreased for each type of modication and a decrease in
swelling power was observed with increase in number of modi-
cations carried out. The pasting properties were also affected by
the type and number of modications. The viscosities decreased
with increase in number of modications. The pasting temperature
was found to increase for the starch modied by HT and in those
modied starches where HT was one of the methods of modica-
tion. All the modied starches exhibited softer texture compared
to native starches and were found to be inuenced by type and
number of modications. Therefore, from the present study it can
be concluded that foxtail starches with specic properties can be
prepared by applying different kinds of modications and their
combinations to suit specic functionalities.
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