Starch is a natural polymer. It is also an important food nutrient. Studies related to starch content testing can provide basic data for starch intake assessments and correlation studies. Meanwhile, data on the starch content in food are important for guiding the population to have a reasonable diet. Starch content directly affects the nutritional value, consumption quality, and processing quality of food. This paper summarized the common starch content detection techniques in food in the past five years, such as titration, spectrophotometry, near-infrared spectroscopy, and other methods. The principles, advantages, and disadvantages of these starch content detection techniques were described and discussed. Their problems in real sample detection (e.g., time-consuming, cumbersome operation, over-reliance on modeling algorithms, etc.) were analyzed. Challenges and future trends are also presented with the expectation of providing useful references for future research and practical applications. This paper provides a direction and research basis for the development of starch content detection techniques for food. It also provides value to related work in starch research.