As digestion function declined, it’s good to provide elders some snacks between meals. Cookies are welcomed and convenient snack for elders as a nutrition carrier.However, saturated fat, which is unfriendly to vascular disease, is commonly used in commercial cookie recipe. This study tried to substitute saturated fat with unsaturated fat to make healthier cookies for elders. Baking temperatures for various cookies are different from 150-180℃.Sunflower oil was selected in this study for its higher smoke point (210℃) and more acceptable price than other oils. Three stages were implemented: semi-structured survey to investigate cookie demands of elders in the first, secondly, experiments in laboratory to develop cookie recipe in accord with demands, finally a sensory evaluation was done to analyze the acceptance of the oil-made cookie. Top three results of “Cookie Demands for the Elders” questionnaire were:”not too hard to have a bite” (34%), “not too sweet” (17%), “enough flavor” (12%). Substituting butter with sunflower oil in cookie recipe resulted in unacceptable hardness, which can be conquered by the technology of yeast fermentation and substitution of sugar with trehalose. The final “sunflower-oil-cookie” recipe contained whole wheat flour 50%, sunflower oil 7.5%, yeast powder 3.5%, trehalose 17%, dried Sakura shrimp 8%, and miso 10%.This cookie was then sensory evaluated through “Consumer Preferences Test of Sunflower-oil-cookie” questionnaire by a convenience sampling 161 elders (103 valid) aged more than 50yrs old. The much-welcomed characteristics of the cookie were “not-sticky” (64%),“pleasant-salty” (53%),“enough flavor”(53%) and “crumbly” (52%). As to the hardness, 74% elders considered acceptable (very liked 6%, liked 26%, average 42%). Overall satisfaction rate was 48%. Gender (t = -0.129，p=0.898),age (F=0.087，p=0.967), smoking (t = -1.368，p=0.174), denture wearing (t = -0.634， p=0.528) were not significant related to overall satisfaction。Texture Analyzer detected no significant difference (t = -1.088，p=0.880) in hardness between “Sunflower-oil-cookie” and “Palm-oil-cookie” (same cookie recipe except for the saturated palm oil was used), however, 47% elders considered the texture of “Palm-oil-cookie” was “too hard” than “Sunflower-oil-cookie”, while only 19% elders considered inversely, and 34% couldn't tell the difference. Both instrumental analysis and consumer sensory evaluation indicated that “Sunflower-oil-cookie” recipe developed in this study can overcome the too-hard-texture difficulty. In conclusion, oil can substitute for fat to make healthier cookies for elders.
