Dates are the fruit of the date palm and tastes sweet. Dates are dark brown , oval, and about 1-1/2 inches long. Its skin wrinkled and coated with a sticky, waxy film.
Date palms fruits are eaten as raw dates, dry dates and soft dates. Dates are highly nutritious and delicious.
Date fruits are rich spruce of sweeteners, glucose and fructose. Date syrup studies shows that it is mainly composed of reduced sugar: glucose and fructose as major source of sugar fraction.
The fully ripe fruits contain 75-80% sugars. As ripening progresses, then sucrose is hydrolyzed into ‘invert’ or ‘reducing’ sugars, a mixture of glucose and fructose, depending upon variety, cultural practices and other factors.
Soft and semi dry dates are primarily of the reducing sugar type (giving higher levels of sucrose hydrolyzed), while dry dates are mostly of the sucrose type.
Dates also good sources of iron, potassium calcium, magnesium, sulphur, copper and phosphorus, along with various vitamins, including thiamine, riboflavin, biotin, folic and ascorbic acid. The date palm fruit possesses antioxidant and antimutagenic properties in vitro.
Dates also contain tannins that are made mainly of polyphenols and two groups of them (phenolic acids and condensed tannins) are thought to be important on producing the astringent sensory response.
The tannin responsible for astringency of dates and their content decreased a maturity progressed.
Nutrition of date palms fruit