Dhaka, Oct. 4 -- I have seen date palms all my life. In the winter, during early morning car rides from our home in Dhaka to my ancestral village Mohishkhola, I would see men with lungis tucked around their waist climbing lithely up the tall, slender trunks to collect the date syrup. They shave the bark from one side of the tree, cut a slanted groove across the exposed bark, and hang a clay pot overnight to collect the sweet sap in the morning.

In 2021, when I was 12 and became more health conscious and interested in natural substitutes for refined sugar, it was my grandmother who suggested I switch to organic date syrup, a traditional sweetener famous in the region of Mohishkhola. I found it to be a healthier substitute, and started thi...