The quickest way to see which meals carry calcium is to line the foods that contain it up by the numbers. Below is a per-100g table built from USDA FoodData Central, followed by a few meals that pair dates with the foods that actually supply the calcium.
The foods that do the work
The NHS lists these sources of calcium: milk, cheese and other dairy foods; green leafy vegetables such as curly kale and okra; soya drinks with added calcium; bread and anything made with fortified flour; and fish where you eat the bones, like sardines and pilchards. Its target for adults aged 19 to 64 and over is 700mg a day, and it says a varied and balanced diet should provide all of it.
Here is how those foods compare, with dates and prunes added for scale.
| Food (USDA FoodData Central) | Calcium per 100g |
|---|---|
| Cheddar cheese | 710mg |
| Firm tofu, prepared with calcium sulfate | 683mg |
| Tahini (sesame butter) | 426mg |
| Atlantic sardines, canned in oil, with bone | 382mg |
| Almonds | 269mg |
| Kale, raw | 254mg |
| Soymilk, unsweetened, with added calcium | 124mg |
| Plain whole-milk yoghurt | 121mg |
| Whole milk, 3.25% milkfat | 113mg |
| Okra, raw | 82mg |
| Medjool dates | 64mg |
| Egg, whole, raw | 56mg |
| Prunes | 43mg |
| Deglet Noor dates | 39mg |
All rows are SR Legacy records, last updated in 2019. Two things stand out. Cheese and calcium-set tofu sit far above everything else, and fortified soymilk lands level with dairy milk. Dates are near the bottom, though Medjool carries noticeably more than Deglet Noor: 64mg against 39mg.
Meals built around the table
Per-100g numbers only help once you turn them into portions. These are simple pairings, with dates in each one at the 30g portion the NHS counts as 1 of your 5 A Day. The NHS adds that dried fruit should be eaten at mealtimes, not as a snack between meals, to reduce the impact on teeth, so each pairing below is a meal or part of one.
Yoghurt bowl with chopped Medjool
150g of plain whole-milk yoghurt gives about 182mg. Stir in 30g of chopped Medjool for roughly another 19mg. Total: about 201mg, a little under a third of the day.
Deglet Noor with tahini and almonds
Spoon 15g of tahini over 30g of Deglet Noor and scatter 30g of almonds on top. The tahini brings about 64mg, the almonds about 81mg and the dates about 12mg, so around 156mg for a small dessert plate after dinner. Deglet Noor is the golden, semi-dry date from Tunisia and Algeria.
Tofu stir-fry, dates afterwards
A 100g serving of calcium-set firm tofu alone gives about 683mg, which is nearly the whole 700mg. The figure is for tofu made with calcium sulfate, so look for it on the pack. A few Medjool after the meal add only about 19mg per 30g.
Cheese and fruit plate
30g of cheddar is about 213mg. Paired with 30g of Medjool (19mg) and 30g of almonds (81mg), the plate comes to about 313mg.
Reading the numbers fairly
In these meals, dates are there for taste and as part of 5 A Day, not as a calcium food. In every pairing above, the yoghurt, tahini, almonds, cheese or tofu supplies most of the calcium. Medjool is the better of the two dates on this one nutrient. Even so, 30g still gives under 3% of the 700mg target.
The NHS page also warns about the other end: taking high doses of calcium, more than 1,500mg a day, could lead to stomach pain and diarrhoea. The NHS repeats the 1,500mg figure in its supplement advice, where it says taking 1,500mg or less a day is unlikely to cause any harm. Each meal above stays well under it.
This post has long carried a link to Kurma medjool Malaysia, an outside site, and it is kept here. To buy dates from Iran Date Fruit, the about us page covers orders and nationwide delivery, and the contact page lists the WhatsApp number.
These figures are general nutrition information, not personal dietary advice; a GP or dietitian can help with individual needs.