Summary

Particle size distribution, colour, morphology and chemical composition of chestnut (Castanea sativa Mill.) starches isolated from fresh chestnut fruits (S1), semi-dried chestnut fruits at room temperature (S2) and commercial chestnut flour (S3) were determined using several experimental techniques. All starches had a bimodal particle size distribution, par-ticularly S1 showed two types of starch granules – small (1.5 mm diameter) and large gra-nules (10.5 mm). Starch granule sizes depended on the moisture content of the samples, decreasing slightly in the following order S1>S2>S3; however, no significant differences were observed in the morphological analysis. Most of the granules exhibited round or oval shapes, and exceptionally, some of them featured trefoil shape, which is not usually found in other starches. Colour results indicated that S3 samples had the darkest colour, followed by S2 and S1. Tested chestnut starches showed significant differences in total starch con-tent, with starch isolation being more selective in dried samples. All samples showed low damaged starch (<2.91 %) and intermediate amylose (from 17.0 to 25.8 %) content on dry mass basis. The lowest amount of amylose was obtained in S1, even though it was within the range of common commercial starches. Key words: gluten-free diet, optical microscopy, particle size, amylose, damaged starc