Abstract: In order to improve the quality and retard the retrogradation of rice starch based foods, the effects of carrageenan,
pectin and gum arabic on pasting, rheological and retrogradation properties of rice starch were studied. The addition of
carrageenan and pectin significantly increased the peak and trough viscosities of rice starch. All the hydrocolloids especially
pectin decreased the final and setback viscosities of rice starch. Dynamic viscoelastic measurements showed that the rice
starch gel studied in this work was a typical weak gel system. The influence of pectin and carrageenan on the storage
modulus G’ and the loss modulus G’’ was greater than that of gum arabic. The obtained steady shear flow curves were fitted
with the power law model. The rice starch and hydrocolloid blends exhibited a typical pseudoplastic flow behavior. DSC
experiments showed that the addition of hydrocolloids increased the stability of rice starch gel under refrigerated conditions.
The long-term retrogradation of rice starch was mostly retarded with the addition of arabic gum. The effects of pectin and
carrageenan may attribute to the intramolecular associations between hydrocolloids and solubilized starches by intertwining
and hydrogen bonding, while arabic gum may weaken the hydrogen bonding network between starch molecules and delay
their associations by its volumetric exclusion effect.

Key words: hydrocolloids, rice starch, rheological property, retrogradation, pasting