The Carbohydrates

Starch is a mixture of glucans which is found mainly in the plant kingdom, where it occurs as the principal food reserve polysaccharide and may be utilized during growth of the plant. Starch usually forms the chief source of carbohydrate in the human diet. The polysaccharide is thus of great economic importance, and it is isolated on an industrial scale from many sources, particularly cereals. Although the food industry is a major outlet for the manufactured product, starch, modified starch, and starch derivatives have many general uses in industry, particularly in paper and textile manufacture. After cellulose, starch is probably the most widely commercially utilized of all the polysaccharides.