Starch

starch picture STARCH PRODUCTS
Starch is one of nature's major renewable resources and a mainstay of our food and industrial economy. Basic consumer necessities such as paper and textiles are major uses for corn starch in sizing, surface coating and adhesive applications. Corn starches, and their cousins dextrins (a roasted starch), are used in hundreds of adhesive applications. Special types of starches are used in the search for oil as part of the "drilling mud" which cools down superheated oil drilling bits. Other key uses of starch in American industry are as flocculating agents, anticaking agents, mold-release agents, dusting powder and thickening agents.

Literally thousands of supermarket staples are produced using both regular and specially modified starches. Many of today's instant and ready-to-eat foods are produced using starches which enable them to maintain the proper textural characteristics during freezing, thawing and heating. Other starches are the backbone of instant pie and pudding fillings which require little or no cooking compared to traditional formulations.

The most promising new market for corn starches is as raw material for the production of industrial chemicals and plastics which are today made from petroleum feedstocks. As petroleum supplies dwindle or become less reliable, the importance of an abundant source of basic industrial chemicals takes on new proportions. Corn industry scientists are at work on new systems for producing industrial necessities from the versatile corn plant

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