Native and modified starches are very valued for the food industry, being employed mainly as thickeners or stabilizers. Several technological limitations of native starch pastes or gels made it necessary to develop modified starches for the food industry. In the present work modified starch samples (n=20) available in Brazil were received from some producers and evaluated in relation to selected physicochemical characteristics and technological properties. Also a very simple evaluation of food starch market was done and allowed to conclude that Brazilian food industry is deeply interested on modified starches. It was possible to note that some foods like mayonnaise have on its composition modified starch whereas others like mustard sauce are produced only with native starch. The physicochemical analyses showed that some of the studied samples had high acidity levels, related with the presence of excess reagents employed on the starch modification processes; the results of carboxyl groups content allowed this conclusion. Almost all results were in agreement with the producers' specifications, for example for the freeze-thaw stability, apparent viscosity and the expansion power. The most frequent botanical sources among the studied samples were cassava, waxy corn and regular corn.
cassava; waxy corn; food; physicochemical analyses
