Could there be a better job than ice-cream tester? The only qualification to join the 100-strong panel assembled by United Arab Emirates University researchers was an admission that you like ice cream and eat it at least once a week. But behind this pinch-yourself opportunity was a serious question: whether date syrup is a viable alternative to other sweeteners, such as sugar and sucrose.
The verdict of the panel – described as “mostly single, Emirati female undergraduates” – was that date syrup ice cream was not only as good as the sucrose alternative, with the benefits of also being more nutritious and without needing added flavouring, but they would pay a premium for it.
In a world where the trend is to move away from highly processed or artificial sweeteners, dates are both a natural alternative and available here in vast quantities. We all scream for ice cream, but we might all scream louder for date syrup ice cream.