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Rice, has long been an inseparable part of the human diet all over the world. As one of the most rapidly growing crops, rice has played a key role in securing the food chain of low-income food-deficit countries. Starch is the main component in rice granules which other than its nutritional essence, plays a key role in defining the physicochemical attributes of rice-based products. However, rice starch suffers from weak techno-functional characteristics (e.g., retrogradability of pastes, opacity of gels, and low shear/temperature resistibility. Green modification techniques (i.e. Non-thermal methods, Novel thermal (e.g., microwave, and ohmic heating) and enzymatic approaches) were shown to be potent tools in modifying rice starch characteristics without the exertion of unfavorable chemical reagents. This study corroborated the potential of green techniques for rice starch modification and provided deep insight for their further application instead of unsafe chemical methods., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest None., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Apart from its non-toxicity, biocompatibility and biodegradability, starch has demonstrated eminent functional characteristics, e.g., forming well-defined gels/films, stabilizing emulsions/foams, and thickening/texturizing foods, which make it a promising hydrocolloid for various food purposes. Nonetheless, because of the ever-increasing range of its applications, modification of starch via chemical and physical methods for expanding its capabilities is unavoidable. The probable detrimental impacts of chemical modification on human health have encouraged scientists to develop potent physical approaches for starch modification. In this category, in recent years, starch combination with other molecules (i.e., gums, mucilages, salts, polyphenols) has been an interesting platform for developing modified starches with unique attributes where the characteristics of the fabricated starch could be finely tuned via adjusting the reaction parameters, type of molecules reacting with starch and the concentration of the reactants. The modification of starch characteristics upon its complexation with gums, mucilages, salts, and polyphenols as common ingredients in food formulations is comprehensively overviewed in this study. Besides their potent impact on physicochemical, and techno-functional attributes, starch modification via complexation could also remarkably customize the digestibility of starch and provide new products with less digestibility., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The objective of this study was to determine the effects of different tigernut flour/rice flour ratios (0:100, 5:95, 10:90, 15:85, 20:80, and 25:75) on quality of gluten-free bread formulations baked in infrared-microwave combination and conventional ovens. The degrees of the starch gelatinization of breads baked in different ovens were also compared. Conventionally baked breads prepared with tigernut flour/rice flour ratio of 10:90 and the infrared-microwave combination-baked breads prepared with tigernut/rice flour ratio of 20:80 had the most acceptable firmness and specific volume values. These breads had also similar color. Tigernut flour had significantly higher gelatinization temperatures and lower gelatinization enthalpy (ΔH) values than rice flour ( p ≤ 0.05). As rice flour was replaced with tigernut flour, lower ΔH values were observed in dough samples. Breads baked in both conventional and combination oven had sufficient starch gelatinization degrees ranging from 91% to 94% and from 84% to 85%, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The deleterious influences of thermal treatments on various foods' aspects, like decomposing flavors and nutritional components, plus developing non-healthy compounds (e.g., acrylamides), have provoked the need for novel non-thermal processing (NTP) approaches less detrimental to food products. Hitherto, several non-thermal methods have been developed for the purpose of food processing, among which sonication, high-pressure processing, pulsed electric field, ozonation, plasma treatment as well as irradiation can be mentioned. Like thermal processes, these methods could intentionally/inadvertently induce remarkable changes in the structural characteristics and technofunctional attributes of food macromolecules i.e., proteins, lipids, and starch. Given the ever-increasing application of non-thermal methods in the realm of food processing, this review has deeply focused on the impact of such techniques on the functional and physicochemical characteristics of food macromolecules. The changes in protein structure upon non-thermal treatments were mostly confined to conformational alterations in their secondary, tertiary, and quaternary architecture where non-covalent interactions play the main role in stabilizing the molecular structure. Such techniques are also potent tools to manipulate starch characteristics by diminishing its viscosity, rheological and pasting attributes, enhancing its clarity, and reducing its retrogradability. Besides, there has also been an increasing trend in the simultaneous application of NTPs with other starch modification techniques to facilitate/intensify the modification reactions. Nonetheless, non-thermal processes in most cases have demonstrated inadvertent ability in intensifying lipid oxidation. [Display omitted] • Non-thermal processing (NTP) methods are potent tools in changing food macromolecules' attributes. • Ultrasonication and high pressure processing were the most investigated methods. • NTP treatments are able to change both physicochemical and nutritional attributes of starches and proteins. • High-fat foods could barely tolerate the NTP treatments. • Cold plasma and irradiation cause the most adverse oxidation reactions in foods high in fat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]