t writes:
Dates have sucrose in them, just like beets do... So if you make them into date sugar, and even if that date sugar is 100% pure dates, what you are getting is a whack of sucrose.

Now, some people will ask why it is that we can have dates, if they contain a disaccharide. This is where the word "Specific", as in Specific Carbohydrate Diet, is important. Sucrose occurs naturally in some of our foods, but that's not the same thing as eating refined sucrose from dates. When you eat a whole date, the other constituents of the date, including the fibre, mitigate how it is digested. SCD is evidence based (to quote Colleen again), and evidence has shown that some carbs are tolerated (by the majority - there are always exceptions) and some are not. We can tolerate cellulose in fruits and vegetable, and a small amount is allowed in meds and supps because it's almost impossible to avoid, but we don't use 'cellulose' as a stand alone ingredient or product. We can tolerate pectin in apples, but we don't use it as an added ingredient... and the list goes on.

Last year, a listmember wrote to a company about their date sugar (and I'm sorry.. I can't remember who it was, or which company they wrote to). An employee of the company wrote back assuring the listmember that their product was 100% pure dates, and that the main constituent of the date sugar was sucrose.... If you eat a date, the main constituent is NOT sucrose, which is why we tolerate them. Changing the predominant ingredient through the process of refinement, makes date sugar a very problematic product for SCDers.

So, some people who have been on the diet for a while, and whose symptoms are under control, may choose to use a bit of date sugar, but it's not recommended, and most certainly not recommended for newbies. I've been on SCD for 17 months now, and I've never tasted date sugar... nor have I felt its lack or impact on the quality and variety of what I eat. It's just not necessary. Why not stick to good old legal bee sweat...

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