Starch isolation and partial characterization of commercial cooking and dessert banana cultivars growing in Mexico

Four types of banana were collected from one of the main areas of production in the south of Mexico; three were classified as dessert bananas and one as a cooking banana. The starch was isolated from the unripe fruit, and the morphological and physicochemical features were analyzed. The isolated starches presented high purity (92-98%). The cooking banana cultivar showed the highest RS content (63.1%) following the one isolated from the dessert banana cultivar (58.1%). The morphology of the starch granules was different in the banana starches, highlighting the Morado cultivar (dessert banana) with long and narrow starch granules. The starch of the cooking banana cultivar presented higher gelatinization temperatures and enthalpy compared to the starch in the dessert banana cultivars. However, no tendency to enthalpy of retrogradation was found related to the consumption mode of the fruit. The physicochemical and morphology features of the banana starches can explain the consumption mode of the fruit. Additionally, banana cultivars should be used for starch isolation, and these banana starches can be used for specific products.