What are the benefits, effects and contraindications of dates? How many should you eat a day? Which is more nutritious, dates or red dates?
Dates are also called Persian dates, foreign dates, Iraqi dates, Wulouzi, date palm, etc. They are the fruit of the date palm species in the palm family. Two-thirds of their content is sugar, making them an excellent nourishing food, known as the “bread of the desert”. So, what are the benefits and effects of dates and their contraindications? How many should you eat a day? Which is more nutritious, dates or red dates?
1. What are the benefits, effects and contraindications of dates?
1. Nutritional composition table of dates
2. Benefits and effects of dates
(1) Treating gastrointestinal illness and dysentery in children: The sugar in dates is easily absorbed and digested, and can treat gastrointestinal illness in children; mixed with honey and taken three times a day, it can treat dysentery in children and also benefits teething.
(2) Detoxifying, beautifying and weight loss: Dates contain natural sugar and water, and have detoxifying and beautifying effects; the various nutrients they contain can ward off hunger, stimulate the gastrointestinal tract, and burn a large amount of calories, playing a role in weight loss.
(3) Treating constipation and liver disease: Dates help restore and strengthen intestinal function, and can help relieve constipation much like coarse grains; their detoxifying effect can clear toxins and heavy metals from the liver, and can also treat tonsillitis, colds and fever.
(4) Treating low sexual function: Eaten mixed with milk and honey, dates can help restore sexual function in both men and women; eaten by the elderly, they can boost physical strength. This juice is a natural tonic for strengthening the body.
(5) Helping to quit drinking and strengthening the constitution: Fresh date juice can accelerate metabolism and help with quitting drinking; dates are rich in vitamins, various minerals and natural polysaccharides, which can relieve physical weakness. Eaten with honey, they can promote intellectual and skeletal development in adolescents and reduce the occurrence of diseases such as anemia and osteomalacia.
(6) Assisting childbirth and promoting lactation: The uterus needs a large amount of sugar during labor, and the abundant sugar in dates can stimulate the uterus, clearing the gastrointestinal tract during delivery and giving the expectant mother more energy; the rich fiber and calcium in dates can effectively promote the secretion of breast milk, playing a role in promoting lactation.
3. Dietary contraindications of dates
(1) What dates should not be eaten with: Dates should not be eaten with cucumber, cucumber, carrot, dairy products, seafood, animal liver, antipyretic drugs, stomachic drugs, vitamins, etc. Eaten with cucumber, cucumber and carrot, the enzymes they contain that break down vitamins will destroy the vitamins in dates; eaten with dairy products, the protein they contain will coagulate into lumps upon contact with the vitamin C in dates and is not easily absorbed by the body; eaten with seafood, the pentavalent arsenic it contains will turn into toxic trivalent arsenic upon contact with the vitamin C in dates, causing poisoning; eaten with animal liver, the copper, iron and other elements it contains will oxidize the vitamins in dates and make them lose their effect; eaten with antipyretic drugs, bitter stomachic drugs and carminative stomachic drugs, and vitamins, it will affect the efficacy of the medicine and the benefits of dates.
(2) Who should not eat dates: People with weak and cold spleen and stomach, people prone to diarrhea, people with frequent urination, people with colds, patients whose tongues appear dark purple, women during menstruation, etc. should not eat them. People with weak and cold spleen and stomach who eat them will increase the burden on the gastrointestinal tract and may experience abdominal pain, acid reflux and heartburn; people prone to diarrhea, people with frequent urination and people with colds who eat them will worsen their condition; patients whose tongues appear dark purple may experience hot palms and soles and restlessness after eating dates; women during menstruation who eat them will cause harm to the body.
(3) Precautions for eating dates: When eating dates raw, they must be disinfected and washed clean; pregnant women eating dates raw should spit out the date skin, and children should not eat too many.
2. How many dates should you eat a day? How should you eat them?
Dates are easy to digest, and it is best for a person to eat about 6 a day. They can be eaten directly after being washed clean, or stewed in porridge, steamed together with rice, or made into various candies, syrups and biscuits; they can also be used to make vinegar and alcohol.
3. What is the difference between dates and red dates? Which is more nutritious?
1. The difference between dates and red dates: Dates belong to the palm family and are the fruit of the date palm tree, while red dates belong to the buckthorn family and are the fruit of the red date tree; dates are mainly produced in the tropical desert regions of the Middle East, while red dates are a fruit unique to China and were already cultivated more than 4,000 years ago; dates and red dates also differ in their nutritional benefits.
2. Which is more nutritious, dates or red dates: Red dates and dates are different fruits, each with its own nutrients. Dates can improve sexual function, while red dates cannot; red dates have a clear function of nourishing the blood, promoting blood circulation and preventing anemia, while dates do not have an obvious blood-nourishing effect; dates can induce labor, while red dates cannot; red dates contain a large amount of vitamins, among which their vitamin P content ranks first among all fruits, earning them the name “natural vitamin pills”, and their vitamin C content also ranks among the top of all fruits, which dates cannot match.