The thermal diffusivity and thermal conductivity of amylose, amylopectin and starch were measured at room temperature and low moisture content using the open photoacoustic cell detection technique. These thermal parameters are an important heat transport property of foods, which are useful in computations, simulations and control of several unsteady-state foods processing operations. The thermal conductivity of these polymers is predicted from the heat diffusion theory and the ratio of the photoacoustic amplitude of the sample and other material of known thermal parameters. The thermal parameters of those granular foods obtained using the photoacoustic spectroscopy are compared with those reported in previous works. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.