The Truth About Figs Being Filled With Dead Wasps
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You’ve probably heard rumors about figs being filled with dead wasps. That's only sort of true. It is true that, without fig wasps, many trees that produce figs would go extinct. But before you throw away your Fig Newtons out of fear you’re eating dead bugs, here’s what you should know about this relationship that dates back to the time of the dinosaurs.
Why Do Figs Need Wasps?
There are hundreds of species of plants in the Ficus genus, from the fiddle leaf fig tree in your living room (Ficus lyrata) to the tree that grows the figs in your kitchen (Ficus carica). Here, we’ll only be talking about the figs we eat.
“In nature, if there were no fig wasps, Ficus species would be unable to reproduce and would be extinct,” said Mike Shanahan, biologist and author of Gods, Wasps and Stranglers: The Secret History and Redemptive Future of Fig Trees. “This relationship is among the tightest in nature and is around 80 million years old.” Hundreds of animals also rely on Ficus species for food, so it's a vital plant.
While we think of figs as just a fruit, they actually contain flowers that require pollination from fig wasps. This type of wasp is much smaller than the black and yellow wasps that have a vicious stinger.
Here's how it works: A female wasp crawls into a small opening in the fig, pollinates the flowers inside and lays eggs. The eggs hatch, and the babies mate. The male wasps dig a hole, allowing the females to escape with eggs and pollen and carry them to another fig tree. The mother wasp dies after laying eggs, which means that she perishes inside the fig. But when you eat a fig, it’s not like you notice a crunchy, dead wasp. Enzymes in the fig digest the dead wasp before they’re packaged for the grocery store.
Some Figs Don’t Need Wasps
Aside from this, the figs you’re probably buying at the store don’t require wasps at all. “Over millennia, farmers have developed thousands of varieties of this species. Many of these do not need to be pollinated to produce tasty figs,” Shanahan said.
The varieties of figs that don’t require pollination are brown turkey, celeste, and mission. Caprifigs, smyrna, and san pedro figs do rely on wasps for pollination. Additionally, Calimyrna figs grown in California aren’t pollinated by wasps. According to the California Figs consortium, 99 percent of the figs produced in California are self-pollinating. And all the dried figs grown commercially in the U.S. and 98 percent of the country’s fresh figs come from California.
Are Figs Vegan?
Now, since dead wasps are involved, you might be wondering whether figs are vegan. This ultimately depends on your definition of veganism.
According to the publication Treehugger, most vegans believe that fig pollination doesn’t involve animal exploitation because it’s a natural process in the wild that wouldn’t be changed simply by not eating figs. Those people would consider figs to be vegan.
But others, according to the article, believe that figs are not vegan because the pollination process involves the death of wasps. Still, it’s important to note that a majority of the figs we purchase at the store are produced without wasps whatsoever.
Whether you enjoy biting into a fresh fig or prefer them in jam or homemade fig bars, just know that the crunch isn’t coming from a wasp.
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