Chickpea (Cicer arietinum Linn.) starch: Extraction, composition, structure, properties, modifications and food applications

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum Linn.) is a widely cultivated edible legume worldwide. Starch is the major carbohydrate in chickpea seeds and amounts up to 50% of the dry matter. Compared with other legume starches and cereal starches, there is a lack of systematic review on chickpea starch. Herein, this review summarized the extraction, composition, structure, properties, modification and food uses of chickpea starch. Literatures showed that chickpea starch exhibited unique molecular structures and functional properties differed from other starches from legumes, cereal and tubers. Moreover, chickpea starch has been found to have remarkable resistance to digestion. The chickpea resistant starch showed prebiotic effect and potential health benefits. To date, chickpea starch has been modified by physical, chemical, biological and dual modification methods to change its functional properties such as swelling power, solubility, thermal, pasting, gel textural properties, and digestibility, which are essential to widen its applications. In food sectors, chickpea starch could be used as fillings, thickeners, gelling agents or a source of resistant starch in various formulated foods. In the end, suggestions on how to deeply understand and exploit chickpea starch are proposed.