Cassava starch: Chemical modification and its impact on functional properties and digestibility, a review

Cassava starch is in high demand due to its availability, low-cost and unique functional features. Cassava starch modification is required to create new techno-functionalities for industrial applications. Chemical treatments are the most common techniques of cassava starch modification to improve starch functionalities. In addition, there are rapidly growing demands towards developing new protocols for making health promoting starch-based ingredients and chemical modification has been investigated for increasing resistant starch and reducing digestibility rates. The current review aims to compile, summarize and critically review the findings of literature published over the last decade on the changes to composition, morphology, structure, functional properties and more importantly digestibility of chemically modified cassava starch compared to its native counterpart. It is evident that different chemical modification techniques vary in terms of their impact on composition, morphology and physical properties of the modified cassava starches and processing conditions should be carefully chosen and designed to obtain high quality modified starches. Through chemical modification, cassava starch can be converted into resistant starch with numerous health benefits. This work may be of interest to starch scientists and manufacturers to exploit the unique functional properties and increase the utilization of modified cassava starch as a health promoting material.