As one of the major public health issues of the 21st century, obesity has reached an epidemic level globally and still shows an increasing trend in its prevalence. Among multiple causes identified for obesity, the most fundamental one is the energy imbalance between caloric intake and expenditure. Designing novel food structures, especially of energy dense carbohydrates, is among the dietary interventions for preventing and/or treating obesity and therefore has become a focus of present food and nutrition research. Since starch is the major energy source in the human diet, enhancing its enzymatic resistance and limiting its caloric provision are of special importance. Resistant starch (RS) is defined as the portion of starch that resists digestion in the small intestine and can be fermented in the large intestine. RS is often regarded as a component of dietary fibers and formulated into foods as a functional ingredient. RS has been studied over the past few decades for its beneficial effects on regulating glucose homeostasis, improving gut health, and increasing satiety, thus having potential effects on reducing obesity. However, RS represents a large variety of starch structures that contribute to enzymatic resistance and their incorporation into foods is not always practical. In this session, recent knowledge about different types of RS, their mechanisms of enzymatic resistance, and limitations in practical use will be discussed. This session will present recent work on developing enzymatic-resistant starch-guest inclusion complex with a low glycemic index. A starch-guest inclusion complex is a supramolecule involves helical starch molecules wrapping guest molecules through non-covalent interactions. Some starch-guest inclusion complex was proposed as a type of RS, but its enzymatic resistance depends on the guest structure and processing methods. Therefore, the structure-digestibility relationship in starch-guest inclusion complex was systematically investigated to design a novel type of RS with enhanced enzymatic resistance. The production of starch-guest inclusion complex in the study utilizes a novel process to create starch helices with an empty cavity to accommodate small guest molecules. The inclusion complex was further processed with hydrothermal treatments, including annealing and mild acid hydrolysis. Speaker: Lingyan Kong, PhD