eng Science and Education Publishing Journal of Food and Nutrition Research 2333-1240 2014-10-07 2 10 731 737 10.12691/jfnr-2-10-12 JFNR201421012 article Bai Yongliang 1 Wen Haixiang 1 Yu Ming 2 Yang Gongming 3 College of Food and Horticultural Sciences, Foshan University, Foshan, China Department of Life Science and Technology, Yangjiang Vocational and Technical College, Yangjiang, China College of Food Science, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, China This study aimed to observe the effect of in vitro digestion on the structural and morphologic characteristics, and find the relationship between in vitro digestion and colonic fermentation of raw banana starch. After digested by artificial gastric juice and artificial intestinal juice, the starch granules were damaged, but not drastic. X-ray diffractograms showed that the crystal polymorph (C-type) was not changed and the degree of crystallinity was increased after digestion. There were no significant differences in chemical structure according to the infrared spectrum analysis. The swelling power and solubility of the digested starches were greater than that of raw banana starch at all temperatures. Banana starches digested by gastric and intestinal juice presented high fermentability, expressed by total short chain fatty acids. The results may be due to the slight changes on structural and morphologic characteristics. To conclude, passage through the stomach and small intestine increased susceptibility of raw banana starch to further fermentation, to increase the production of metabolically active short chain fatty acids. http://pubs.sciepub.com/jfnr/2/10/12/jfnr-2-10-12.pdf raw banana starch in vitro digestion in vitro fermentation short-chain fatty acids