Lately I’ve been pretty obsessed with dried dates, a common ingredient used in raw food recipes especially in raw desserts to sweeten it up naturally without using processed sugars.
These soft, amber-brown fruits may look unpleasant and unsightly, like dead cockroaches, but trust me, it’s one of the best healthy guilt-free snacks on earth you can truly indulge in.
Dried dates are actually fruits of the date palm trees and it’s a staple food among the Arabs and Middle Easterners. The packaged boxes of dates sold in supermarkets are considered to be naturally sweet and perfectly healthy because each dried date contains about 80 % natural sugar and 20 % of essential minerals, proteins,water and dietary fibre. And since it’s in the dried form, the dates could be stored for months without the use of artificial preservatives.
Like bananas, dates are a good source of dietary potassium which helps to reduce the risk of heart-related diseases like stroke. This healthy snack is also rich in iron which is great for natural dietary supplement for those suffering from anemia.
Since it’s the Ramadan season where the Muslims would often munch on dates to break fast, some of the dates are sold at discounted prices at our local supermarkets. So it’s a perfect time to stock up your pantry with these naturally sweet and healthy snacks.
I’ve tried several other types of dates before and I find that Medjool dates are one of the more delicious dates which is rather succulent, fleshy, fibrous and not too overly-sweet.But they are often very expensive, as compared to other types of dates sold in the supermarket. This box of Medjool dates , which I bought at NTUC, costs me about 7 dollars.
But that’s the price you pay for nutritious foodstuff to boost your health. Any raw foodists will tell you that it’s a price worth paying for.
