dried dates

About consuming fruits; fresh, dried or juiced.
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johndela1
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dried dates

Post by johndela1 »

I was reading a page on waisays.com that lists nutrients and where to get them. I noticed egg yolks cover most of the nutrients but the few that aren't found there are available in dates and dried appricots.

I plan to stat buying dates. Is there a type of date that is best for nutritional value?

Medjool seem to be very common.
claireelis
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Post by claireelis »

medjool is definitely really yummy :)
CY
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Post by CY »

One thing to be careful about with dates: sugar in dates is absorbed very quickly, and there's a lot of it. The blood sugar spike resulting from eating dates is almost as strong as taking a spoonful of sugar, perhaps faster (enzymes in dates speed breakdown of fibers, releasing sugar quickly, whereas the body must provide its own enzymes to hydrolyse sucrose into glucose and fructose).

If you do eat dates, don't eat very many at one time (ie. have less than a handful), and combine the dates with something that will slow the digestion (Wai salad?). Almonds and dates are a great treat, and almonds contain fat which should slow the digestion, but almonds are high in protein, which may be a problem.

Also, if possible, choose medjool dates (which it appears you have) over deglet noor. The sugar in medjools is mostly glucose and fructose, whereas deglet noor contain a much higher ration of glucose+fructose to sucrose.
CY
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Post by CY »

*ratio

This site needs an edit button, and I need to proof-read...

:P
johndela1
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Post by johndela1 »

Yea, I usually mix my fruits with fats. Usually nuts or egg yolks. I usually blend the stuff and make a smoothy.
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RRM
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Post by RRM »

johndela1 wrote:Is there a type of date that is best for nutritional value?
Here you can compare medjool to deglet noor nutrient composition:
http://www.waidiet.com/nutrients/item/index2.html
(click on "dates")
CY wrote:The sugar in medjools is mostly glucose and fructose, whereas deglet noor contain a much higher ration of glucose+fructose to sucrose
Thats quite a difference, indeed.
This site needs an edit button, and I need to proof-read...

Ha, ha, yes, i think you meant to say the ratio of glucose+fructose to sucrose is much lower in deglet noor...

(100 g) deglet noor: glucose (19.87 g) + fructose (19.56 g) / sucrose (23.84 g) = 1.65
(100 g) medjool: glucose (33.68 g) + fructose (31.95 g) / sucrose (0.53 g) = 124!!!

Either way, that ratio is not so important, as its more important as to how much of total sugar is single fructose and/or glucose.
deglet noor: 62%
medjool: 99%
So that you need to be a little more careful with medjool than with deglet noor.
overkees
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Re: dried dates

Post by overkees »

Dates are a very easy snack to always carry with you and ingest lots of sugars fast with very very little protein. They are very cheap if you buy them organic, due to their low water content and easy drying process. 750g dried dates for something like 5-6 euros. If I start buying bulks even cheaper.
They are an excellent snack tool during intermittent fasts for evoking autophagy when your hunger feeling is too strong. They are sugar bombs with lots of potassium, magnesium, copper, manganese and vit b3 and vitamin b6.

However, they do contain alot of fiber. I eat dried dates for a while now and haven't noticed alot of troubles with the fiber in the dates. They do not cause bloating, and also not alot of soiling. In the islamic culture they are praised because the quran and the prophet muhammed mention them on several occasions. For being an ideal snack in combination with water during fasting periods and for a perfect remedy for diarrhea to name a few. They recommend the paste of the date for these benefits (I conclude they mean well chewed). I find it very strange, because pretty much all fiber causes problems for me. Dried figs and apricots are just terrible regarding soiling and bloating, but dates form an exception to this for me.

Is there some sort of explanation for this? Are the fibers in dates, because they are sooo sugary, antibacterial or antifungal to prevent fermentation? They grow on palm trees in very hot areas, I can imagine they must have some defense, otherwise all kinds of yeasts will start fermenting it and what not. I can't find anything on the pubmed? Can anyone help?

In the meanwhile I will keep eating these, because I really like them and they are a way better snack than plain sugar that in the end did cause gut problems to start happening again :)
dime
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Re: dried dates

Post by dime »

Maybe I'm wrong, but dates do not contain much fiber, relative to caloric value?
Especially medjool dates, those are the sweetest, most delicious fruit ever (fresh).
There are many different types of fiber btw, which may be tolerated differently by your body.
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RRM
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Re: dried dates

Post by RRM »

dime wrote:Maybe I'm wrong, but dates do not contain much fiber, relative to caloric value?
Relative to caloric value, sure, but as they are fiber-dense (and nutrient dense), this may still hinder digestion significantly.
overkees
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Re: dried dates

Post by overkees »

Apart from the theoretical digestion hindering part of dates, my experience tells me otherwise. Dates won't cause signs of bloating for me and even more important, they produce a significant difference in the soiling effect for me. Almost any other fiber from fruits causes troubles in me, except for dates and pineapples for now (might do some more experiments). I'm very surprised, dates are very high in sugars and still they cause no problems, even if I eat 400-500 g of them. I had some little disbalances while eating dates (little soiling) but they could have been other things aswell.
Kasper
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Re: dried dates

Post by Kasper »

Dates are quite low in B-vitamins. Won't this cause a problem in the end, if you use dates as your main source of energy ?
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