2.3. Freezing and thawing treatment Freezing and thawing treatment was carried out according to the previous study with minor modification(Pongsawatmanit& Srijunthongsiri, 2008). Rice starch suspension and IECT-modified rice starch suspension(8%, w/w rice starch on a dry basis) were prepared by blending starch in distilled water and continuously stirring at 250 rpm for 1 h.Then, these suspensions were gelatinized by placing in a water bath at 95 C for 25 min with continuously stirring. Finally, all of the samples were placed in an incubator at 25 °C for 4 h. Afterwards, the starch gel samples were frozen in a chest freezer(Siemens refrigerator, model BCD-610W)at-20°C for 20h and then thawed in an incubator at 25 C for 4 h. This was one FT cycle. The FT cycle was repeated for seven cycles. Each thawed sample was immediately dried.