Impact of heat-moisture and annealing treatments on physicochemical properties and digestibility of starches from different colored sweet potato varieties

The objective of this study is to investigate the change in physicochemical properties and digestibility of starches isolated from colored sweet potato varieties under heat-moisture treatment (HMT) or annealing treatment (ANN). The results showed that morphology and X-ray diffraction patterns of the sweet potato starches remained unchanged after the HMT or ANN. The HMT significantly reduced peak viscosity, breakdown and setback and significantly increased pasting temperature, trough and final viscosities of the sweet potato starches. The swelling powers and solubility of the heat-moisture treated starches were significantly lower than those of the native or annealed starches. The decreased rapid digestible starch and the increased slowly digestible and resistant starch contents of the sweet potato starches after HMT or ANN as compared to those of the native starches were observed. The resistant starch (RS) contents of the heat-moisture treated sweet potato starches were in a range of 30.6–39.3%, significantly higher than those of the annealed starches (28.8–32.0%). The strong impact of the HMT on physicochemical properties and RS formation of the sweet potato starches compared to the ANN might be due to the high stability of the occurred interactions between starch molecules and amylopectin chains during treatment.