Caribbean Food Emporium -News

One of the products of cassava is starch, which is used in food production, pharmaceuticals, paper manufacturing and textile industries. Other industrial uses of the tuber are in the production of alcohols and manufacture of adhesives.

Other species of Manihot have been grown for their rubber. This has been successful but not widely utilised. The main use of cassava remains as a versatile food.

The flour produced from the cassava plant, which on account of its low content of noncarbohydrate constituents might well be called a starch, is known in world trade as tapioca flour. It is used directly, made into a group of baked or gelatinized products or manufactured into glucose, dextrins and other products.

Starchy foods have always been one of the staples of the human diet. They are mostly consumed in starch-bearing plants or in foods to which commercial starch or its derivatives have been added. The first starch was probably obtained from wheat by the Egyptians for food and for binding fibres to make papyrus paper as early as 4000-3500 B.C.

Starches are now made in many countries from many different starchy raw materials, such as wheat, barley, maize, rice, white or sweet potatoes, cassava, sago palm and waxy xaize. Althbugh they have similar chemical reactions and are usually interchangeable, starches from different sources have different granular structures which affect their physical properties.

Starch and starch products are used in many food and nonfood industries and as chemical raw materials for many other purposes, as in plastics and the tanning of leather. Nonfood use of starches - such as coating, sizings and adhesives - accounts for about 75 percent of the output of the commercial starch industry.

In many industrial applications, there is competition not only among starches from various sources but also between starches and many other products. Resin glue has largely replaced starch in plywood because of its greater resistance to moisture; resin finishes are used in the textile industry and natural gums compete with starches in paper making. Nevertheless, the continuous development of new products has enabled the starch industry to continue its expansion. The growth of the starch industry in the future appears to be very promising, providing the quality of products and the development of new products permit them to compete with the various substitutes.

The food industries are one of the largest consumers of starch and starch products. In addition, large quantities of starch are sold in the form of products sold in small packages for household cooking. Cassava, sago and other tropical starches were extensively used for food prior to the Second World War, but their volume declined owing to the disruption of world trade caused by the war. Attempts were made to develop waxy maize as a replacement for normal noncereal starches; but the production of cassava starch has increased considerably in recent years.

Unmodified starch, modified starch and glucose are used in the food industry for one or more of the following purposes:

Although starch is the major constituent of flours, the art of' bread baking depends to a large extent on the selection of flour with the proper gluten characteristics. Starch is used in biscuit making, to increase volume and crispness. In Malaysia, cassava starch is used in sweetened and unsweetened biscuits and in cream sandwiches at the rate of 5-10 percent in order to soften zyestexture. add taste and render the biscuit nonstickv. The use of dextrose in some kinds of yeast-raised bread and bakery products has certain advantages as it is readily available lo the yeast and the resulting fermentation is quick and complete. It also imparts a golden brown colour to the crust and permits longer conservation.

In addition to the widespread use of dextrose and glucose syrup as sweetening agents in confectioneries. starch and modified starches are also used in the manufacture of many types of candies such as jellybeans. toffee. hard and soft gums, boiled sweets (hard candy). fondants and Turkish delight. In confectioneries. starch is used principally in the manufacture of gums. pastes and other types of sweets as an ingredient, in the making of moulds or for dusting sweets to prevent them from sticking together. Dextrose prevents crystallization in boiled sweets and reduces hvdroscopicity in the finished product.

Recent advances in these industries include the partial replacement of sucrose by dextrose or sulfur-dioxide-free glucose syrup. This helps to maintain the desired percentage of solids in the products without giving excessive sweetness, thereby emphasizing the natural flavour of the fruit. The tendency toward crystallization of sugars is also decreased.

This product is used extensively in many parts of the world in powder or crystal form as a flavouring agent in foods such as meats, vegetables, sauces and gravies. Cassava starch and molasses are the major raw materials used in the manufacture of MSG in the Far East and Latin American countries. The starch is usually hydrolyzed into glucose by boiling with hydrochloric or sulfuric acid solutions in closed converters under pressure. The glucose is filtered and converted into glutamic acid by bacterial fermentation. The resulting glutamic acid is refined, filtered and treated with caustic soda to produce monosodium glutamate, which is then centrifuged and dried in drum driers. The finished product is usually at least 99 percent pure.

Caramel as a colouring agent for food, confectionery and liquor is extensively made of glucose rather than sucrose because of its lower cost. If invert sugar, dextrose or glucose is heated alone, a material is formed that is used for flavouring purposes; but if heated in the presence of certain catalysts, the coloration is greatly heightened, and the darker brown products formed can be used to colour many foodstuffs and beverages.

Uniform and controlled heating with uniform agitation is necessary to carry the caramellization to the point where all the sugar has been destroyed without liberating the carbon.

According to Whistler and Paschell, Abu Mansur, an Arabian teacher and pharmacologist, about 975 A.D. described the conversion of starch with saliva into an artificial honey. In 1811 Kirchoff discovered that sugar could be produced by the acid hydrolysis of starch. Glucose, or dextrose sugar, is found in nature in sweet fruits such as grapes and in honey. It is less sweet than sucrose (cane or beet sugar) and also less soluble in water; however, when used in combination with sucrose, the resulting sweetness is often greater than expected.

The commercial manufacture of glucose sugars from starch began during the Napoleonic Wars with England, when suppliers of sucrose sugar were cut off from France by sea blockade. Rapid progress was made in its production in the United States about the middle of the nineteenth century.

The nutritional value of bakery products made from composite flours was assessed in 1965 by the Central Institute for Nutrition and Food Research, (Utrecht, Zeist), where the nutritional value of cassava/soya bread and cassava/groundnut bread was compared with the protein quality of common wheat bread. It was concluded that the protein quality of both breads was higher than that of common wheat bread. The cassava/soya bread topped the other two breads in protein quality, while the cassava/groundnut bread was slightly superior to common wheat bread.

In 1969 at the Queen Elizabeth College, London, breads produced at the British Arkady Co. Ltd. were assessed. They were made from various composite flour mixtures consisting of wheat flour, cassava starch, soya flour, millet and sorghum flour and fish-protein concentrate in various proportions with mechanical leavening. Results indicated that the protein value of the original bread had not been impaired by supplementation, but showed improvement.

Prospects for commercial production and widespread consumption of bread made of composite flours in different countries will depend upon local acceptance (taste and characteristics of the bread) and the price at which the bread will be available to the public.

Food habits are primarily based on socioeconomic and other conditions rather than on scientific considerations. Changes in established habits can take place gradually through public education and the spread of knowledge.