Datteri Mazafati

Date Palm Fruits

My first introduction to dates was in the movie Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark. The cute little capuchin monkey eats them and then dies because they have been poisoned. I am not going to lie: as a young child this scared me a bit, and I did not want to touch dates at all. The presence of nicotine in dates can inhibit the growth of harmful pathological organisms and promote the growth of friendly bacteria in the intestines. Besides, they contain soluble and insoluble fibres, as well as beneficial amino acids, which ensure proper digestion of food. This results in full absorption of the nutrients by the digestive tract and their proper usage in the body.

UAE  has more than 199 different types of date fruits. The country has around 44 Kimia Dates million palm trees (98% of all fruit trees), which produce 900.000 tons of date fruits per year. Oman is behind UAE , having only 8 million palm trees (82% of all fruit trees), which give about 268.000 tons of date fruits yearly. The TOP country for date fruits producing is Egypt. Saudi Arabia and Iran follow. Oman and UAE are still among TOP 10 producers of date fruits in the world. There are more than 1000 different types of date fruits known.

The kimri stage lasts about 5 months and is basically while the dates are green. The next ripening stage is the khalal stage when the dates have grown to their maximum size and turn yellowish or reddish depending on the specific date variety. Next comes the rutab stage, when the dates begin to soften and lose their bright colors. The date becomes fully mature at the tamar stage.

Date palms are cultivated in arid and semi-arid regions which are characterised by long and hot summers, no (or at most low) rainfall and very low relative humidity level during the ripening period. Exceptionally high temperatures (± 56°C) are well endured by a date palm for several days under irrigation. During winter, temperatures below 0°C are also endured (A. Zaid, 2002). The location of Desert Fruit farms is therefore ideal for date production, providing the potential to produce high quality dates comparable to or better than those produced in Israel.

In this research, the effect of different concentrations of carbon nanotubes on organoleptic Mazafati Dates company properties and fungal growth of Mazafati brand dates was studied. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the sensory characteristics and microbial films on Mazafati date during the storage. It was shown that uniform dispersion of carbon nanotubes in the polymer networks can have an effect on the antimicrobial activity of this packaging.