Last Assignment of EFS Course

Here was my final task for EFS Course.
Since it was in Ramadhan, so I translated an article about Ramadhan stuff,, breaking fasting according to Rasulullah..
Okee,, I know it's already Syawal. But,, breaking fasting doesn't occur only in Ramadhan, does it??
Enjoyy..

Let’s break the fast with sweet one??

I’m sure most of us hear that sentence frequently. Yes, that is a tagline from one of beverages commercial.  If we hear about sweet, we will connect it to one material, sugar. That is why, most people usually break their fast with kolak or other beverages containing with sugar, such as es campur, es teler, etc.  As a moslem, we are recommended to follow our prophet’s Sunnah, aren’t we? So, what Rasul has told us about breaking the fast? Anas Ibnu Maalik said, “The prophet used to break his fast with fresh dates before he prayed. If he did not find fresh dates, then he would use the dried dates. If he did not find that also, he drank a few sips of water” (narrated by Ahmad and Abu Dawood).

So, next question is, “Does dates have any similarity with all those sweet beverages?”. If I were you, I would answer it certainly, “Nope”. Maybe you would argue me since the dates is tasted sweet, just like sugar. But actually, fresh dates is not that sweet. Fresh dates is high nutritious fruit with low calorie. The dates imported to Indonesia is confectionery dates. As we know, since it is confectionery, a lot of sugar is added to the dates. In Indonesia, it is very rare for us to find fresh imported dates.

The next point differentiating dates and those beverages is their contents. Dates is a complex carbohydrate, while sugar, as contain in sweet foods, is simple carbohydrate. When we are fasting, the quantity of glycogen in our blood  is decreasing. Because dates is a complex carbohydrate, it is needed more time to change it to become glycogen, while a simple carbohydrate is faster. So, if we break our fast with sweet beverages, the quantity of glycogen will increase simultaneously. And this is not good at all.

As we know, the quantity of glycogen in our bloods is maintaining by insulin hormone, which is produce by pancreas. So, we could imagine what will happen to our pancreas if there is a significant increasing of glycogen’s quantity in our bloods. Yes, it will work harder than normal condition. Furthermore, it is also known that the reactions of insulin hormone also have a connection with the way of our body in storing fat, the quicker the response, the more fat are stored. In the other words, breaking our fast with sweet beverages will make our insulin hormone to response quicker, so our body will store more fat.

Why risking our health?? Let’s not break our fasting with the sweet one, but with dates or water.

source: a note from MSI Ulul Ilmi