Date Nutrition: High Sugar, High Fiber, Low Glycemic Index

Pick up a Medjool date and read the nutrition label. The sugar content — 63g per 100g — looks like something from a candy bar. Your first instinct is to put it down.

That instinct is wrong, and the reason why is interesting food chemistry.

Dates are one of the clearest examples of why sugar content alone doesn’t tell you how a food affects your blood sugar. Their glycemic index sits between 42 and 55 depending on variety, which puts them below whole wheat bread, below most commercial breakfast cereals, and squarely in the “low to moderate” category (Al-Shahib and Marshall, 2003, Int J Food Sci Nutr, PMID: 12850886). The fiber and tannins in the flesh act like a brake on glucose absorption.

The catch — and there is one — is serving size. The 100g figures you’ll read in nutrition databases represent 4-5 Medjool dates. Nobody eats five dates in one sitting as a casual snack. Two or three is a serving. That framing changes everything.

Nutritional Profile

The per-100g numbers come from USDA data for Medjool dates.

The serving column is the one that matters for real-world eating. Three dates with a handful of walnuts is a reasonable snack. That delivers around 4g of fiber, 420mg of potassium, and meaningful magnesium alongside the sugar.

Vitamins are a weak spot for dates. The mineral profile is where they earn their reputation.

Why the Glycemic Index Is Lower Than Expected

Think of a date’s interior as a mesh of fiber and tannins wrapped around sugar molecules. To get to your bloodstream, glucose has to move through that mesh. It slows everything down.

The fiber component is about 6.7g per 100g, split between soluble and insoluble types. Soluble fiber in the gut forms a gel that slows gastric emptying and reduces the speed of glucose absorption. That’s the same mechanism behind oats having a low GI despite moderate sugar content. The relevant details are at fiber types and how they work in the body.

Tannins add a second layer. Dates contain significant polyphenols, including condensed tannins and flavonoids (Al-Farsi and Lee, 2008, Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr, PMID: 18949591). Tannins inhibit alpha-amylase and alpha-glucosidase, the digestive enzymes that break down carbohydrates. Less enzyme activity means slower carbohydrate digestion. The sugar in dates is partly bound up in a form that resists rapid breakdown.

The result: despite 63g of sugar per 100g, the glycemic index is 42-55. For context, white bread is around 75. Whole wheat bread is typically 69-72. Dates, eaten in a normal serving, produce a more moderate blood sugar response than either.

But be honest about the glycemic load. At a 60g serving (two to three dates), the glycemic load is roughly 18-20, which is moderate-to-high. Dates do raise blood sugar. They just raise it less than their sugar content alone predicts. These are different claims, and both matter. For more on why GI and GL tell different stories, see glycemic load vs. glycemic index explained.

Potassium, Magnesium, and the Mineral Case for Dates

Potassium is the nutritional standout. At 696mg per 100g, dates have more potassium than bananas (358mg per 100g), more than avocado (485mg per 100g), and more than sweet potato (337mg per 100g). Per serving, three dates get you to about 420mg, roughly 12% of the WHO’s daily target of 3510mg.

Potassium matters for blood pressure regulation and fluid balance. Most people in Western diets don’t get enough of it. Dates are a practical way to close that gap, particularly because they’re shelf-stable and don’t require cooking.

Magnesium comes in at 54mg per 100g, or about 13% of the daily value. Magnesium is involved in over 300 enzymatic reactions including ATP production, protein synthesis, and blood glucose regulation. A single serving of dates contributes meaningfully to daily magnesium intake, which is worth noting given that magnesium deficiency is common in people eating heavily processed diets. For a deeper look at what magnesium does in the body, see magnesium in the body.

One important caveat: dates do contain phytates and oxalates. These compounds bind minerals and reduce bioavailability. The potassium in dates is absorbed well regardless, since phytate binding primarily affects iron, zinc, and calcium. But the calcium figure in the table above (64mg per 100g) will not be fully absorbed because of oxalate content.

Dates in Late Pregnancy

This is worth discussing because the evidence is real and the internet tends to either ignore it or overclaim it.

Al-Kuran et al. (2011, J Obstet Gynaecol, PMID: 21280989) recruited 69 women and had half of them eat six dates per day for the final four weeks of pregnancy. The group that ate dates arrived at labor with significantly higher Bishop scores (a clinical measure of cervical ripeness), a shorter first stage of labor, and a notably lower rate of needing labor induction. 96% of the date-eating group went into spontaneous labor versus 79% of the control group.

The mechanism is unclear. Dates contain compounds that may interact with oxytocin receptors in the uterus, and they contain prostaglandin-like precursors that could play a role in cervical ripening. The authors are careful not to claim causation.

What the research doesn’t support: the idea that eating dates will “induce” labor on demand. The association is with cervical ripening and labor readiness, not with triggering contractions at a specific time. Anyone pregnant should discuss diet changes with their midwife or OB before acting on this research.

Using Dates as a Natural Sweetener

Blended into a smooth paste with a small amount of water, dates replace refined sugar in baking at roughly a 1:1 ratio by sweetness. The resulting paste is less sweet than white sugar, so you may need slightly more by volume, but you’re adding fiber, potassium, and polyphenols that refined sugar doesn’t have.

This matters most in no-bake applications: energy balls, raw bars, date-nut crusts for cheesecakes. The moisture in date paste also helps with texture, binding dry ingredients the way honey or maple syrup does. See the science of sugar in baking for how swapping sweeteners affects structure and browning.

Dates are still sugar. Using a date paste instead of white sugar doesn’t make a cookie “low sugar.” It makes it a more nutritious version of a high-sugar food. The distinction matters when thinking about added sugar science.

One practical advantage: dates store exceptionally well. Refrigerated, they keep for 6-12 months. Frozen, up to three years. The high sugar content acts as a natural preservative by reducing water activity, which limits microbial growth. That’s the same principle that makes honey shelf-stable indefinitely.

Medjool vs. Deglet Noor: for baking and sweetener use, Medjool’s softer flesh blends more smoothly. Deglet Noor requires longer soaking but works fine. Nutritionally, they’re nearly identical per 100g. The difference is size and texture, not health value.