Every sweetener on the shelf claims to be the healthy one. Most comparisons online are written to flatter whatever the writer is selling. So here's our promise for this article: we sell date sugar, and we'll still tell you where the other sweeteners win.
Below is how date sugar genuinely compares with the four sweeteners Australians reach for most — white sugar, brown sugar, coconut sugar and honey — across the five things that matter: processing, nutrition, flavour, baking behaviour and price.
First, what each one actually is
- White sugar: sucrose crystals refined from cane, with everything else stripped away.
- Brown sugar: white sugar with a little molasses left in (or added back). Roughly 95% sucrose.
- Coconut sugar: coconut palm sap, boiled down and crystallised. Mostly sucrose, with trace minerals.
- Honey: floral nectar concentrated by bees. A liquid blend of fructose and glucose, with trace enzymes and antioxidants.
- Date sugar: whole dried dates, milled into granules. Not an extract — the entire fruit, fibre included.
That last line is the structural difference. Four of these are concentrated extracts of a plant's sugar. One is the plant.
Processing: how far from the farm?
Date sugar has the shortest process described here — dried fruit through a mill. Honey is close behind (extracted and filtered). Coconut sugar requires hours of boiling. White and brown sugar go through extraction, clarification, crystallisation and refining. If your rule of thumb is "eat things closer to what they were", date sugar is the only sweetener here that's still recognisably food in its whole form.
Nutrition: the fibre divide
| Per 100g | Date sugar | Brown sugar | White sugar | Coconut sugar | Honey |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Energy | 1535kJ | ~1600kJ | ~1700kJ | ~1600kJ | ~1360kJ |
| Sugars | 67g | ~97g | ~100g | ~92g | ~82g |
| Dietary fibre | 10g | 0g | 0g | ~2g | 0g |
| Potassium | 580mg | ~130mg | ~2mg | ~625mg | ~52mg |
Date sugar figures are for Aurum Tunisian Deglet Noor date sugar; others are typical published values and vary by brand.
Three honest observations:
- Aurum Date Sugar contains 67g sugars and 10g dietary fibre per 100g, according to its Nutrition Information Panel. The refined options shown in the table contain little or no dietary fibre.
- Coconut sugar varies by brand. The typical values shown here are around 92g sugars and 2g dietary fibre per 100g.
- No single sweetener is right for every purpose. Compare product labels and choose according to taste, recipe performance and your dietary needs.
Flavour
- White sugar: pure sweetness, no flavour. Neutral by design.
- Brown sugar: sweetness plus a molasses note.
- Coconut sugar: mild caramel, slightly earthy.
- Honey: floral and distinctive — it flavours everything it touches.
- Date sugar: deep caramel-toffee with butterscotch warmth. The most flavour-forward of the dry sweeteners — in blind tastings of cookies and crumbles, it's the one people comment on.
Baking behaviour: where each one wins
Date sugar wins: cookies, muffins, banana bread, crumble toppings, granola, spice rubs, streusels — anywhere brown sugar would go and melting isn't structural. Swap 1:1 for brown sugar. (Full method in our baking guide.)
White sugar wins: meringues, pavlova, glassy caramel, fairy-floss territory — anything that depends on pure sucrose melting and recrystallising. Date sugar doesn't melt; the fibre prevents it.
Honey wins: sweetening drinks. Date sugar doesn't fully dissolve in tea or coffee — the fibre settles instead of disappearing — so we genuinely recommend honey for your cuppa and date sugar for your oven.
Coconut sugar: dissolves and melts more like brown sugar, with a milder caramel flavour than date sugar.
Price in Australia (mid-2026)
- White/brown sugar: ~$2–4 per kg — the commodity baseline.
- Coconut sugar: ~$10–16 per kg.
- Honey: ~$10–25 per kg depending on origin.
- Date sugar: ~$14–28 per kg depending on brand. Aurum Date Sugar is $10.95 per 500g (about $22/kg), shipped Australia-wide.
Refined sugar will always win on price — it's an industrial commodity. Among the wholefood options, date sugar sits alongside coconut sugar and good honey, while being the only one that's a whole fruit.
The verdict
If you want a dry sweetener with caramel flavour that retains the whole date's fibre, date sugar is one option to consider. White sugar still suits meringue and clear caramel work, while honey dissolves more readily in drinks.
For most Australian home baking — cookies, cakes, crumbles, granola, porridge — a 1:1 swap to date sugar is the simplest upgrade you can make: same measuring cup and a deeper whole-date caramel flavour.
Read next: What is date sugar? The complete Australian guide · Brown butter date sugar cookies
Try it: Aurum Date Sugar — 100% Tunisian Deglet Noor dates, 500g.