Comparison of the nutritional composition of raw, boiled, roasted Macadamia (F. Muell. Macadamieae) and its application as an elder-friendly food

The purpose of this study is to establish an optimal pretreatment method that can improve the nutritional quality of Macadamia, and to develop viscous beverage products for the elderly with dysphagia to help prevent suffocation and improve nutritional imbalance. As a result, roasting Macadamia had a significant effect on increasing the unsaturated fatty acid and mineral content (p < 0.01) rather than raw and boiled. Next, a thickening agent was added to develop viscous nut breeze using roasted Macadamia for the elderly, who could easily choke even if they drank water due to weakened esophageal muscles. Therefore, it was confirmed that all thickening agents used in this study can be applied as elder-friendly foods suitable for Korean Industrial Standards, and the regression equation for viscosity change according to thickening agent concentration was 'Y = 62,136X + 29.821 (R2 = 0.9676)' for xanthan gum, 'Y = 59,271X – 200.79 (R2 = 0.9542)' for locust bean gum, 'Y = 4,069X – 7.4643 (R2 = 0.9578)' for carrageenan, and 'Y = 900X + 3.6429 (R2 = 0.9589)' for gum arabic. In conclusion, this study can help prevent suffocation and improve nutritional imbalance by developing viscous nut breeze beverage products using roasted Macadamia for the elderly with dysphagia, and can be used as basic data for the elder-friendly food industry in the future. Meanwhile, as in this study, studies should be continuously conducted to reduce the nutritional imbalance of the elderly by changing the intake methods of various nuts.