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The Best Dates and Where to Get them!

I just love dates, they are for sure nature’s candy and so healthful.

Over the years I have tried many varieties of the best dates in the World, in this new video, I will share what I think are the best dates as well as the best places to buy your Fresh Organic Dates from! Dates are always a sweet treat, but the best dates are always fresh.

If I was forced to pick where to get the best dates ever,

I would have to say my favorite place to order Organic Dates is BautistaOrganicDates.com by the Bautista Family!the best dates Available in both Fresh in “Wet Packs” or a bit drier in “Dry Packs, they have amazing prices and varieties and ship from the USA to Canada. With shipping I find I pay about $6.5o per lb, this is an amazing deal for quality organic dates as most conventional store-bought dates range from $4.99 – $7.99 an lb.

Go ahead and Check out BautistaOrganicDates.com and see what sweetness you find, Perfect to help through the Winter with dense calories and Great Recipes!

** other great wholesalers are listed at the bottom of the post 🙂

Now, about the best dates!

My Top 5 Favourite Varieties + some Bonus Recipe Ideas:

Deglet Noor – Firmer in texture the Deglet Noor is a perfect snacking or traveling date. The Deglet’s lovely translucence, nutty flavor, lightly chewy texture, and subtler sweetness combine for a date that is especially pleasing to refined tastebuds, honestly my favorite date! They are great chopped up in banana pudding (mash bananas, chop dates, mix together with some cinnamon and sliced bananas)

Zahidi – This rare variety offers an amazing combination of peanut buttery nutty flavor, subtler sweetness, and enjoyably chewy bite. Like the Deglet it is drier and is great for snacking or traveling.

Great Chopped up in banana pudding or mashed and mixed (food processor) with carob, other dried fruit, and or flaked coconut to make delicious Raw Treat-More bars and balls.

Honey – Here’s a horticultural lesson for you (*from BautistaOrganicDates.com): Most date varieties are grown strictly from the offshoots (cuttings) of the parent tree, resulting in identical fruit. A Medjool is a Medjool is a Medjool. But “Honey” is a catch-all name for dates grown from seed, so there is no one true Honey date. These one-of-a-kind little sweeties are the delicious result of fallen fruit that has taken root. These softer but not too sticky dates are perfect for pitting and pushing into stalks of celery for Sweet C Sticks, this makes a great travel food or quick-packed lunch with other sweet fruit.

Halawy – The Halawy date is a bit smaller than the rest but comes with an amazing caramel flavor and melting softness. These sultry blondes taste like butter-rich caramel in fact they remind me almost exactly of an old Halloween candy I used to get, the orange wrappers with a little white ghost on them. Really soft and sticky these caramel-flavored dates also work really great in hot Datorades (Pit and blend with hot water or your favorite herbal tea, I like 1 lb dates to 1.5 liters of water). They also work well blended with just enough hot water to make a thick caramel syrup to pour over banana “NiceCream”

Khadrawy – Khadrawys are a pure melt-in-your-mouth caramel candy. They are the softest gooiest variety and super sweet. They taste almost exactly like small Kraft caramel squares that are individually wrapped in clear plastic. These soft and sweet dates work really great in hot datorades as well as a thick caramel syrup, or with carob for chocolate syrup to pour over banana “NiceCream” or as a fun dip (fondue / fundue) for chopped sweet fruit, apples, and celery. Another neat trick is to blend some dates with your favorite berries for a “Jam” spread on a lettuce leaf, place a banana inside and you have a banana n jam Handwich! 🙂

Some say that Dates and Bananas are like the “Rice” and “bread” of a low-fat raw vegans diet, this is and can be quite true as they make excellent caloric staples in the diet especially when you use the best dates possible.

Here are some interesting Date Facts:

The word “date” comes from the Greek word dactyls, meaning finger.

One cup of dates has about 400 calories, 27 percent of the recommended daily requirement of potassium and 48 percent of daily fiber needs.

 Dates provide calcium, zinc, iron, copper, magnesium, calcium, and other minerals that may help lower blood pressure, stroke risk, and labor complications.

Dates are rich in the antioxidants known as polyphenols, which fight disease-causing free radicals.

Very few people are allergic to dates.

Dates made nomadic life and trade possible in the very dry and hot regions of the Middle East and North Africa.

Because the tree and its fruit have so many uses — from food to building materials — the date palm is known as the “tree of life” in the Middle East, and it’s the national symbol of Saudi Arabia and Israel.

Date palm seeds can go dormant for decades until the right light and water conditions are just right.

Some scholars believe a date — not an apple — was the real fruit mentioned in the Bible’s Garden of Eden.

Date palm trees need at least 100 days of 100ºF heat and plenty of water to produce the best dates.

Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics mark years with images of full date palms, as the trees grow 12 new fronds a year.

About 3% of the earth’s farmland is covered by date palms, producing four million tons a year.

The bulk of US dates are grown in California’s Coachella Valley. High temperatures and irrigation from the Colorado River make growing conditions ideal.

There are more than 200 varieties of dates. Medjool, large and caramel-like, is the hardest to grow and therefore one of the most expensive to buy.

While they are high in sugar (about 93 grams per cup), many varieties have a low glycemic index (GI)

Ancient Mesopotamians considered the date an aphrodisiac. It’s the symbol of the goddess Ishtar, the prototype of Venus and Aphrodite. (It can’t hurt to give it a try.)

Date palms were brought to Spain from North Africa around 800 AD. Spanish explorers brought seeds to Cuba in the 1500s. Missionaries planted them in Baja California in 1765, while other varieties were imported to California in the early 1900s.

If you are in North America Here is a list of some of the most amazing Organic Date Growers to get the best dates – click on the banner to check out their sites 🙂

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And Check out this site for more Californian Grown Dates 🙂

Wishing you a sweet and warm winter filled with a bunch of the best dates and new varieties you haven’t tried!

As Always

Wishing You Much

PeaceLovenSeasonalFruit ck

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4 Comments

  1. Thanks so much for the info on 7HotDates.com. I ordered a variety pack from them and it just arrived yesterday-I never knew how delicious dates could be! Some of them really do taste like caramel:). I’m thinking I should have ordered more!

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