Why sweeten with date puree?

I’m an intuitive person. Ten years ago, I was trying to find a better way to sweeten pleasure food so that I could treat myself without getting that famous feeling of guilt. As an endurance athlete I trained hard and I was hungry all the time, but I didn’t want to ruin all my fine efforts by feeding my body food with little nutritional value. Obsessed? No. Well, actually, yes… obsessed about wanting to be able to indulge myself in a healthier way.

And that’s why, during my maternity leave in 2011, I set off in quest of a more evolved way of sweetening and preparing pleasure food. I was looking for something that would offer endless possibilities and versatility. MAGICSKI! And that’s how Madame Labriski date puree came into being. Dates are the most neutral tasting dried fruit so they don’t taste of dates. You can only taste dates if you add pieces of date to a recipe. Date puree is high in fibre, so it allows you to sweeten while at the same time significantly improving the nutritional value of recipes.

In order to answer that ever-recurring question about the fact that SUGAR IS SUGAR, here’s what Isabelle had to say.

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Date puree contains sugar, so is there a real advantage of using it as a substitute for white sugar in a recipe?
Definitely! And here’s why.

Sugar is sugar. That’s very true! In fact, what we call white sugar is also known as sucrose in the scientific community. The term refers to a chemical molecule made up of one glucose unit and one fructose unit. When these two units of sugar link together, they form what is commonly referred to as sugar. Sugar is found naturally in fruit and certain vegetables. The industry also extracts it from certain plants, such as sugar cane and sugar beets, in order to process it into refined sugar.

It is therefore true to say that, regardless of its source, the sugar molecule remains the same. However, there is a genuine advantage to consuming the types of sugar that are still in their primary structure and haven’t been refined by industry. When sugar is contained in a whole fruit, it is also accompanied by dietary fibre. This fibre slows down the absorption of sugar in the digestive system and mitigates its impact on our blood sugar level, that is to say the amount of sugar in the bloodstream. Fibre also has a satiating effect which allows us to limit our food intake to only what we really need, and thus stops us from eating an astronomical amount of sugar.

The real problem therefore lies instead in the excessive consumption of free sugars in our diet. When sugar is extracted from its original food matrix and then refined, it suddenly becomes much easier to consume it in large amounts. Therefore, using sweeteners that are not from refined sugar sources, but rather from minimally processed staple foods that contain sugar will truly enhance the nutritional quality of a recipe.

As a comparison, if you use 1 cup of white sugar in a recipe, you’re adding 211g of sucrose (sugar), 0g of dietary fibre and 818 calories. However, should you decide to instead replace that cup of white sugar with a cup of date puree, you’ll be adding 106g of sucrose (sugar), 14g of dietary fibre and 480 calories to your recipe.

So, the answer is yes, you are still adding sugar to your recipe when you substitute white sugar for date puree, but the amount is substantially less! As a result, the recipe will most certainly be considerably better in terms of its nutritional values.

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So, tell me? How many of you still have your doubts about the benefits of dates? 

May the energy be with you.
Mériane AKA Madame xxx