Jujube (Red Date)

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What jujube is, fresh and dried

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Jujube, the red date, holds little iron, and what it has is the poorly absorbed kind found in plants, so the claim that red dates build blood does not hold up. What is really worth eating fresh jujube for is its vitamin C, and that is mostly lost when the fruit is dried. The chapter on why jujube does not build blood walks through the gates in the gut where iron gets stuck, one by one.

Jujube is the fruit of the jujube tree, and it holds a high place in Chinese cooking and tradition, often treated as a symbol of nourishment. To understand it, first tell fresh from dried: fresh jujube is crisp, sweet, and juicy, and quite high in vitamin C; what we eat most often, though, is the sun-dried date, and drying pulls out the water and concentrates the sugar while much of the heat-sensitive vitamin C is lost. So although both are called dates, a dried jujube is really closer to a concentrated sweet dried fruit — the same story as grapes turning into raisins.

Two smooth plump fresh jujubes on the left, beside two smaller, wrinkled dark-red dried jujubes. — A CLOSER LOOK
Fresh and dried jujubes differ
The comparison is not an equal-weight portion. Fresh-fruit vitamin C and concentrated sugar in dried fruit belong to different accounts.

Educational content, not medical advice — consult a clinician.

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