Difference Between Starch and Flour

The key difference between starch and flour is that starch is a tasteless, odorless, white solid substance at room temperature, containing carbohydrate with carbon, hydrogen and oxygen atoms while flour is a powder made by grinding raw grains, which is used to make many different foods such as bread, cakes and pastry.

Starch is a carbohydrate with carbon, hydrogen and oxygen atoms while flour is a powder that we get by grinding raw grains. Flour contains a high proportion of starch.

CONTENTS

1. Overview and Key Difference
2. What is Starch
3. What is Flour
4. Relationship Between Starch and Flour
5. Side by Side Comparison – Starch vs Flour in Tabular Form
6. Summary

What is Starch?

Starch is a carbohydrate with carbon, hydrogen and oxygen atoms. Most plants including rice, corn, potatoes and wheat store their energy as starch. Therefore, we can extract starch from these foods. The digestion of starch makes glucose.

Moreover, starch is a tasteless, odorless, white solid substance at room temperature. It does not dissolve in cold water. If you want to check whether a certain food item contains starch, you can do the Iodine test. In this test, the orange-yellow iodine solution becomes blue-black if starch is present.

Furthermore, starch has many uses. Various food companies use starch to make sweeteners and thickeners. Inside the body, starch makes glucose, which is a major source of energy. It is also possible to modify pure starch by a chemical, physical or enzymatic process in order to create ‘modified starches’. These have various characteristics, which becomes useful in the food, oil, adhesives, paper, textile, fermentation and pharmaceutical industries.

What is Flour?

Flour is a powder that we get by grinding raw grains, and we use them to make many different foods such as bread, cakes and pastry. Cereal flour is one of the main ingredients of staple food in most cultures.  Wheat flour, corn flour, rice flour, and, rye flour are some examples of various types of flour.

Cereal grins usually have three main components: bran (hard outer shell), germ (nutrient-rich embryo) and endosperm (largest part, which is mainly starch). White flour is made only from the endosperm while brown flour includes some grains’ germ and bran. Cereal flour either consists of the endosperm, germ, and bran together, which is known as whole-grain flour, or only the endosperm, which is known as refined flour.

There is a high proportion of starch in the flour. Moreover, higher protein contents make flour harder and stronger, resulting in crusty and chewy breads whereas lower protein content will produce softer flour, which is ideal for cakes and cookies.

Production of flour typically includes the process of milling.  Milling traditionally involves grinding grain between stones or steel wheels. However, today there are many modern machines which can convert raw grains to flour.

What is the Relationship Between Starch and Flour?

• Flour contains a high proportion of starch.
• Also, both products start from the same origin – plants.

What is the Difference Between Starch and Flour?

Starch is a tasteless, odorless, white solid substance at room temperature, containing carbohydrate with carbon, hydrogen and oxygen atoms while flour is a powder we get by grinding raw grains, and we use them to make many different foods such as bread, cakes and pastry. Therefore, this is the key difference between starch and flour. Starch is extracted from carbohydrate-rich food like potatoes, corn and wheat while flour is made by grinding raw grains. We can use starch as thickeners and sweeteners, but flour serves as a main ingredient in staples like bread, and, pasta, noodles. So, this is another difference between starch and flour. Moreover, starch has to go through a lot of processing while flour goes through comparatively minimal processing.

Below infographic tabulates the difference between starch and flour.

Summary – Starch vs Flour

Many people use the two words starch and flour interchangeably. However, starch and flour are two different substances. The key difference between starch and flour is that starch is a tasteless, odorless, white solid substance at room temperature, containing carbohydrate with carbon, hydrogen and oxygen atoms while flour is a powder made by grinding raw grains, which is used to make many different foods such as bread, cakes and pastry.

Reference:

1.“What Is Starch?” BBC News, BBC, 23 Oct. 2018. Available here 
2.“What Is Starch? What Is It Used for? Why Do We Need It?” Starch Europe. Available here  
3.“Flour.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 13 Feb. 2019. Available here  

Image Courtesy:

1.”Corn Starch”By Miansari66 – Own work, (Public Domain) via Commons Wikimedia  
2.”Flours”By Mudd1 – Own work, (CC BY-SA 3.0) via Commons Wikimedia