{"id":18038,"date":"2026-01-23T18:26:48","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T16:26:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tastyfood.top\/?p=18038"},"modified":"2026-01-23T18:26:48","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T16:26:48","slug":"you-have-to-read-this-before-you-eat-figs-youll-be-surprised","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tastyfood.top\/?p=18038","title":{"rendered":"You have to read this before you eat figs. You&#8217;ll be surprised!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This sounds like a classic internet &#8220;clickbait&#8221; that tries to scare people with some shocking revelation. If you&#8217;re bumping into that familiar information about wasps inside figs, let me reassure you &#8211; it&#8217;s a fascinating piece of nature, but it&#8217;s not as horror-inducing as it seems at first glance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Here&#8217;s what you should know about figs before you bite into them:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The Wasp Story: True or Myth?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It&#8217;s true that figs and tiny wasps (called figarki) have a fascinating relationship (symbiosis) with each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">How it works: A fig is not technically a fruit, but a closed flower. In order to pollinate itself, the wasp has to crawl inside through a small opening. There, it lays its eggs and dies.<br>Where&#8217;s the catch? Figs produce a special enzyme called ficin, which completely breaks down the wasp&#8217;s body into protein. When you eat a fig, you&#8217;re not eating a dead wasp &#8211; those parts have long since been transformed into part of the fruit.<br>Good news: Most figs you buy in our stores are so-called parthenocarpic varieties. This means that they have been bred to ripen without pollination by wasps. So the ones in the &#8220;supermarket&#8221; have probably never been pollinated by wasps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol start=\"2\" class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Beware of &#8220;fig milk&#8221;<br>If you pick fresh figs straight from the tree, beware of the white sticky juice that flows from the stem (latex).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It contains substances that can cause unpleasant burns or blisters (phototoxicity) when in contact with the skin and subsequent exposure to the sun.<br>If this juice gets on your hands, wash them immediately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol start=\"3\" class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Are figs vegan?<br>This is a big topic in the vegan community because of the aforementioned issues.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Some strict vegans don\u2019t eat figs because they consider them a product that an animal \u201csuffered.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">However, most people (including vegans) see this as a natural biological process, without which figs wouldn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol start=\"4\" class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Health \u201csurprises\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Figs are great, but they also have their strengths that you should know about:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Natural laxative: They have an extremely high fiber content. If you eat too many of them at once (especially dried ones), your digestion will feel it very quickly.<br>High sugar content: Dried figs are a calorie bomb. They have around 50-60% sugar, so they are in the \u201cbe careful\u201d category for diabetics.<br><br>Summary<br>Figs are one of the healthiest and oldest fruits in the world. They are full of potassium, magnesium, and calcium. You don&#8217;t have to worry about finding pieces of insects in them &#8211; nature has it all figured out so that it recycles everything down to the last atom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Do you have fresh figs at home and are you looking for a recipe for what to do with them, or were you just about to throw them away because of those wasp rumors?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This sounds like a classic internet &#8220;clickbait&#8221; that tries to scare people with some shocking revelation. If you&#8217;re bumping into that familiar information about wasps inside figs, let me reassure [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18039,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nteresting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tastyfood.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tastyfood.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tastyfood.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tastyfood.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tastyfood.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18038"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.tastyfood.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18040,"href":"https:\/\/www.tastyfood.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18038\/revisions\/18040"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tastyfood.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tastyfood.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tastyfood.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tastyfood.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}