Cultivation of date palms in Egypt goes back thousands of years. The date palm tree has great socioeconomic importance and nutritional value in Egypt. Its traditional use as a primary source of food and by-products and its ecological benefi ts in oasis agriculture make it an important fruit tree and the best crop to be cultivated. Egypt is the most productive country of date palm fruit in the world. There is a high potential for increasing the production area of date palm to fulfi ll local consumption in the whole country and to produce date fruits for export purposes. Presently, the Egyptian Government and private sector are convinced of the potential of date production and are striving to establish commercial date plantations and promote viable date production. Despite its important roles in Egyptian agriculture and the efforts made, date palm cultivation, production, processing, and marketing are still beleaguered with several problems. The low quality of cultivars, poor farm management, pests and diseases, marketing obstacles, and insuffi cient applicable research are the major constraints of the date palm in Egypt. Moreover, inconsistent quality in combination with low-grade packaging provides a considerable challenge for Egyptian date producers to fi ll the unmet domestic and international demand. By contrast, an abundance of capable manpower and arable land, low labor costs as well as the wide range of date palm diversity are among the most important competitive factors. This chapter discusses the current status, constraints, and the available avenues that can be used to develop the date palm industry in Egypt.

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Date palms (Phoenix dactylifera L.) are important traditional crop, vital component of human diet in the Arab world. It has essential nutrients i.e. (vitamins, minerals, dietary fibers and carbohydrates) and potential health benefits. Date fruit was oven dried and milled. This study aims to evaluate the effect of date powder as a natural sweetener instead of sugar on the proximate chemical composition, physical properties and sensory characterizations of cookies. However, levels of replacement of Samany date powder which used in the cookies formula were 5, 10, 20 and 40%. Proximate chemical composition of Samany date were determined .It was noticed that the moisture percentage was of 54.74%, while the protein and fat contents were found at low levels being 1.61 and 0.77%, respectively. The ash and crude fiber were constituted 2.36 and 6.51%, respectively. Total sugars were obtained at 47.27%, however, reducing and nonreducing sugar were given at 35.40 and 11.87%, respectively. The obtained results showed that increasing the date powder ratio led to increase total carbohydrates, crude fibers, ash, crude fat, moisture and protein contents. However, physical characteristics of cookies, i.e. thickness, diameter and speed factor of the prepared cookies decreased. The results of organoleptic criteria indicated that color had low score with increasing the substitution ratio. On the other hand, both crispiness and texture were affected at 20% and 40% of date powder level. Our findings ascertained that the cookies supplemental with 40% date powder had the lowest acceptability. Meanwhile, at substitution ratio of 10%, the quality of cookies was not adversely affected by the color, taste, crispiness, texture, odor and overall acceptability (p ≥0.05), so, it could be suggesting that date palm powder can be used and incorporated in bakery products up to 10% .Finally, it can be concluded that it is highly recommended to use dates powder in the manufacturing of cookies at a commercial scale where the nutritional value of the samples increased by increasing the replacement of date powder.