Morphology, physical, chemical and functional properties of starches from cereals, legumes and tubers cultivated in Africa: A review

In Africa a variety of indigenous cereals, legumes and tubers are cultivated as starchy food crops. These include sorghum, millet species including pearl millet, finger millet, teff and white and black fonio, and African rice as cereals; cowpea, Bambara groundnut, African yambean and West African locust bean as legumes; and Zulu round potato and the Livingstone potato as tubers. Many of these plants are considered as ‘lost crops of Africa’. This paper critically reviews the literature on the physical, chemical, and functionality of their starches. Information is essentially limited to the native starches of sorghum, some millets and cowpea. Livingstone potato starch information is essentially absent. Notable characteristics of African starches include that teff and finger millet have compound starch granules.. Some of the starches have unique properties which could be valuable. The very small granular size of teff and its functional properties can be exploited as a fat replacer. The high retrogradation of cowpea starch has potential in gluten-free pasta and noodles. Nonfood applications for the African starches should be considered in the growing mining and oil industries in Africa.