Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is a very sensitive probe of molecular motion in the fluid state. NMR spectroscopic techniques reported in this overview have been used to study starch-water-sugar systems at the molecular level. The increased onset temperature of starch gelatinization in the presence of sugars is well known, but not so well understood. Several mechanisms and variations of those mechanisms have been suggested including 1) a competition between the sugars and starch for the available water and thus changes in the free water volume (Derby et al., 1975; Hoseney et al., 1977; Slade and Levine, 1988b), 2) an inhibition of starch swelling by the sugars (D’Appolonia, 1972; Bean and Yamazaki, 1978; Savage and Osman, 1978; Wooton and Bamunuarachchi, 1980; Lelievre, 1984), which might be related to the competition for water, and 3) a penetration of the starch granule by the sugars and interactions leading to a stabilization of the granule that requires more energy to disrupt (Spies and Hoseney, 1982). Studies of the starch-sugar-water systems have used the amylograph for macro-level measurements of viscosity changes (Lund, 1984), microscopic techniques to observe the loss of birefringence and increased swelling (Bean and Osman, 1959; Watson, 1977; Bean and Yamazaki, 1978; Bean et al., 1978), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) to measure melting temperatures and enthalpies (Wooton and Bamunuarachchi, 1980; Spies and Hoseney, 1980).