Construction of short-chain amylose beads embedded in calcium alginate and their anti-digestive mechanism

Abstract

Resistant starch (RS), recognized as an innovative form of dietary fiber, plays a crucial role in the formulation and advancement of foods. RS is aimed at stabilizing blood sugar levels and contributing to the mitigation and prevention of metabolic issues. However, its application is hindered by relatively poor thermal stability during food processing. Herein, we propose a novel hybrid strategy to fabricate heat-resistant retrograded short-chain amylose beads (RSCABs) by encapsulating retrograded short-chain amylose (RSCA) with calcium alginate, combining the beneficial characteristics of RS1 and RS3. RSCA were formed by different concentrations of SCA solution (30 %–50 %) retrograding at 4, 25, and 50 °C for 12 h, respectively. The resulting RSCABs exhibited an internal honeycomb-like structure containing numerous cells. RSCABs prepared with 50 % (w/w) SCA and retrograded at 50 °C showed higher crystallinity of 74.42 % before cooking and 78.37 % after cooking than SCA (59.76 %). The onset temperature of the cooked RSCABs exceeded 100 °C, with an enthalpy change of 35.34 ± 5.70 J g−1, indicating desirable heating stability. In vitro digestion demonstrated that the RS content of the cooked beads was up to 67.50 % ± 3.06 %, 4.9 times higher than that of SCA (14.24 % ± 0.24 %). The heat-resistant RSCABs developed in this study hold significant potential for improving RS content.