The Tree of Life and the Great Medjool Date

The Mejdool date is known as the king of dates. It is a very large and sweet dessert date. Dates probably allowed Western Civilization to develop. With dates people had a staple food. A date palm does not produce dates year round, but dates can be stored for prolonged periods of time. The fruit loses moisture over time, but it can be stored for many months and even years. The date not only allowed people to survive, but it allowed people to thrive in the desert. The fruit was so important that we can still find laws talking about dates in the tablets of ancient Sumeria. The bread of the desert was the date and it probably still continues to be the date. It was a large source of food and following wars it was often used to subjugate conquered people, by limiting or cutting down date palm orchards.
The palm is probably the tree of life mentioned in the Bible. The reason why the palm is known as the tree of life, is because it provides for everything a person needs to live on. The date palm was used for just about everything from weaving baskets, to house furniture, to providing food, to providing fuel, to providing feed for animals, to providing building materials. People lived from the date palm, there was no waste, it was the tree of life. Even though the date palm was known as the tree of life, it is actually not a tree at all.
In modern days the date palm continues to be a very important source of food. The date fruit provides a staple food and date propagation is very important to many governments in the Middle East and North Africa. It is probably the only fruit tree that can be grown in the desert to produce fruit. Desert people still depend on the date fruit and still live from the date. A date palm can produce fruit for a life time and then some. A date palm can live about 150 years, so it is enough to feed two generations. Once the hard work of growing one orchard is done, the following generation will have a stable source of food and can do something else. This may have been how people started to do other things and how civilization started to develop.
Once a year there is a special season called Ramadan, where Islam requires fasting and the fast is often broken by eating dates. A variety of dates is often grown to be consumed for these purposes. The date fruit ripens early and can be eaten before it ripens fully. This date fruit often referred to as the Ramadan date is not fully ripened, but unlike other fruit it is not bitter and it can be eaten. In the US other dates are consumed in place because that is all that is available. The Medjool date is harvested until around September in California and Arizona. US grown dates are harvested too late for Ramadan, because Ramadan takes place in August before the Medjool and other dates are harvested.
The Medjool date is valued for its sweetness and it was once reserved for royalty, now a days you can buy it at most local grocery stores. The date fruit is still expensive, but within everyone's reach. The date has a lot of carbohydrates, potassium, and cleansing qualities. The fruit is a known as a power food, ounce for ounce it has more nutrients than other foods, especially potassium.