Background

Starch is a major component of our diet. It is also a useful and versatile ingredient in many food and nonfood uses. The main starch sources include maize, potato, cassava, and wheat. The starches from these sources represent the most studied and the most used starches for both industry and academia. Recently, there has been increasing research focusing on underutilized, nonconventional and “novel” starches from many different crops. There has been discussion on why we should spend effort in studying these “novel” starches.

Scope and approach

This commentary illustrates the rationale of exploring unconventional starches using case studies. The examples used may represent typical cases for each reason. A limited number of starch examples have been used, though there can be many other unconventional starches in the categories not mentioned here. How the underutilized starches may complement the common starches for diverse food and nonfood applications is discussed.

Key findings and conclusions

The rationale of exploiting these underutilized starches relates to sustainable and green production, waste and by-products utilization, local availability, demand of novel experiences from consumers, cultural and social significance, and technological advantages over the common starches. Future studies should focus on the comparison between underutilized starches and the common starches to show if there are any technological advantages of the former.

中文翻译：

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未充分利用的非常规淀粉：我们为什么要关心？

背景

淀粉是我们饮食的主要成分。它也是许多食品和非食品用途中有用且用途广泛的成分。淀粉的主要来源包括玉米，马铃薯，木薯和小麦。这些来源的淀粉代表了工业和学术界研究最多，使用最多的淀粉。最近，越来越多的研究集中在来自许多不同作物的未充分利用的，非常规的和“新颖”的淀粉上。已经讨论了为什么我们应该花精力研究这些“新”淀粉。

范围和方法

这篇评论说明了使用案例研究探索非常规淀粉的基本原理。出于各种原因，所使用的示例可能代表典型的情况。尽管在这里未提及的类别中可能存在许多其他非常规淀粉，但使用了数量有限的淀粉实例。讨论了未充分利用的淀粉如何补充各种食品和非食品应用中的普通淀粉。

主要发现和结论

利用这些未充分利用的淀粉的基本原理涉及可持续和绿色生产，废物和副产品的利用，本地供应，消费者对新体验的需求，文化和社会意义以及相对于普通淀粉的技术优势。未来的研究应侧重于未充分利用的淀粉与普通淀粉之间的比较，以显示前者是否具有任何技术优势。