Near the end of the sixteenth century, a Puritan preacher described starching your clothes this way:

“that most devilish device of Starch...a sin so abominable that it doth cry so loudly in the Lord's ears for vengeance”

This quote only makes sense in its context. Famines and general food shortages were very common in this time period. This was due to the enormous population growth all over Europe, the lack of commercial farming, dependence on a single crop (grain - especially wheat), and the many wars. It has been estimated that a person experienced one famine on average in a lifetime. And these were boil leather or chase down the cats in the street sort of famines. This left people very anxious about the availability of food. In England bakers would be put in the stocks for selling bread below the specified weight. Given that starch was derived from wheat, the preacher's fury is a little more understandable.