Some insects I found inside dried Turkish figs from Trader Joe’s

On a side note, try to keep eating figs in dried form at a moderate amount or avoid altogether if the source is &quot;not reputable&quot;.<p>Dried figs are very susceptible to Aflatoxin B1(1) which is a <i>very potent</i> carcinogen from fungi. US food safety regulations allow 2-10 times more aflatoxin B1 in food compared to EU.<p>During my work, I had a chance to visit dried fig producers and saw even a couple of contaminated figs spreading to the rest of the stock like wildfire.<p>What you can do is to check your dried figs under UV light, and it should not shine. Here&#x27;s an example image(2) I found.<p>Source: I have worked in the company as a machine vision engineer to develop aflatoxin detection systems with UV light.<p>1: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Aflatoxin_B1" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Aflatoxin_B1</a><p>2: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;dergipark.org.tr&#x2F;tr&#x2F;download&#x2F;article-file&#x2F;21073?page=11" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;dergipark.org.tr&#x2F;tr&#x2F;download&#x2F;article-file&#x2F;21073?page...</a>

When I was young my grandma told me an interesting rule of thumb from her childhood in the old country:<p>If there are no bugs in the grain after it has been stored for a while, don&#x27;t eat it.<p>The rationale was that if bugs didn&#x27;t want to eat it (they didn&#x27;t have tightly sealed packaging at that time), it was probably chemically contaminated.

This is nasty but these wasps and the fig trees that are their home are the subject of one of the best nature documentaries I&#x27;ve ever seen, The Queen of Trees:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=xy86ak2fQJM">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=xy86ak2fQJM</a><p>If you can locate a good HD copy it&#x27;s worth waiting and watching that. Ian Holm narrates the stories of a bunch of different animals, from fig wasps to other bugs and larger creatures like bats, monkeys and even humans that rely on the tree. It has some of the most horrifying but also incredible imagery I&#x27;ve seen in a nature show and some real groaner lines from Holm to boot. My friends and I watch it every year or two and it never fails to amaze me.

This reminds me that figs are extremely controversial in the vegan community for this exact reason. To me it seems a little silly given the inevitable consumption of insects in food, but to each their own I guess.

So, I have a touchy stomach as most Americans, but I am also a pacific islander and have gutted fish many times while in Palau. I once dated someone who found eating shrimp with a head difficult as it &quot;had eyes looking back at me.&quot; It definitely is good we have an FDA (and the equivalent in many countries) that keep food clean, but people need to remember and realize the food they eat was alive, interacted with other living things, and like figs, even grew because of them.<p>I&#x27;m not sure if there is a remedy (or really, if it&#x27;s such a bad reaction many including myself have that it requires any remedy), I guess it&#x27;s just good to be aware.

Seems to have been hugged out of image bandwidth, cache at <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.is&#x2F;5X83X" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.is&#x2F;5X83X</a>

Somewhere, in a mountain fortress, Klaus Schwab is rubbing his hands, chuckling, and whispering &quot;excellent - you vill eat ze bugs and be happy, yes?&quot;

I don&#x27;t mean to be squeamish about this, but I&#x27;m glad I&#x27;m not a fig eater. I know fig wasps are totally normal, but I assumed they&#x27;d be completely dissolved or at least unrecognisable. Finding not only recognisable wasps but also many other insects is a bit of a shock to me.<p>But the article says it&#x27;s not uncommon to find insects in stored food. So what other insects have I been eating? My fruit consumption is mostly limited to bananas, apples, grapes, and the occasional strawberry or plum. I do know that fruit flies like a banana, and we&#x27;ve had enough drosophila infestations that I&#x27;m under no illusions about my accidental consumption of them.

Excuse my naive question, but is this something I should worry about at all in buying figs? I don’t mind the idea of eating insects but I’m trying to understand how noticeable this would be from a textural&#x2F;visual&#x2F;taste perspective.

Decent YouTube video on the wasps that pollinate the figs:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=tRBiY65N2gk">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=tRBiY65N2gk</a>

I&#x27;m Turkish and fresh figs are readily available in season in Turkey. My dad has thought me to always turn a fresh fig inside out and use my eyeballs to check for bugs before I devour one. It&#x27;s more common than you think.

FDA has limits to how many maggots, say, can be in food.<p>Orange Juice, Fruits, Etc.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cbsnews.com&#x2F;gooddaysacramento&#x2F;news&#x2F;bugs-rodent-hair-and-poop-how-much-is-legally-allowed-in-the-food-you-eat-every-day&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cbsnews.com&#x2F;gooddaysacramento&#x2F;news&#x2F;bugs-rodent-h...</a><p>Though I have to say it&#x27;s pretty awesome(terrible?) that they mix SI units with english units. (milligrams per pound)

Let’s hope my wife never sees this article or she might stop eating altogether.<p>I know there is all sorts of insect stuff in food but as long as it’s measured in parts per million then ok just don’t think about it. There is a lot about food that it helps to not think about. ;)<p>Believe it or not but before Gordon Ramsey was making a name for himself as a professional a-hole he had a really great show in the UK called F-Word which tried to educate people about where their food came from, and it would often follow various food animals from birth to slaughter to being prepared for a meal. It was very informative and one of the best things he has ever done, it’s a real shame it doesn’t translate well to US audiences.<p>(And probably most US audiences would be horrified how food animals are raised over here - no green pastures nor doting farmers tending their herds and flocks)

On Dutch television they showed that sun-dried tomatoes often contain insect parts. When drying in the sun (in Turkey) they attract insects and washing does not remove everything. No reason to worry was the message.

Interesting reply in the original post by Jason:<p>&gt; This reminds me of what I read somewhere about how, when vegetarian Indians started living in England in large numbers they would often have dietary deficiences. The story was that traditional processing left a lot of insects, and the much needed nutrients they contained, in their diets. Industrial processing of the same foods did not.<p>&gt; Source: “in the mid-1970s it was found that orthodox Hindus who had been quite healthy on a vegan diet in their native India began to suffer from a high incidence of metaloblastic anemia after living for some time in England consuming the same diet. The cause was traced to vitamin B-12 deficiency, which in India was prevented by insect contamination of grains.” (pp. 168-169, “An orchard invisible : a natural history of seeds” by Jonathan W. Silvertown.)

Oh hey it is Collin Purrington, whose conference poster templates I regularly used at conferences during PhD- <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;colinpurrington.com&#x2F;tips&#x2F;poster-design&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;colinpurrington.com&#x2F;tips&#x2F;poster-design&#x2F;</a>

I&#x27;ve purchased many different brands of dried figs and 90% are coming from Turkey, which all have bugs, bug poo or mold in them. The fresh figs I purchased were from either the US or Brazil and didn&#x27;t have this problem but were extremely expensive.

Oh holy shit I eat a lot of that same Trader Joe’s fig brand. I am horrified…

Lovely pics of the fungi.<p>Ever had your breads start growing blue stuff, while sitting out on the counter? Ever stop to think that those things were growing there for a couple days, before they got big enough to see?

Let&#x27;s not forget Mimolette... we were staying in Paris, hungry; I hit up a local bodega (or whatever all-night store is in French) and bought a package of what looked to me like nice aged Cheddar.<p>Back in the hotel, we are pigging out on this delicious french cheese when my son (14 yrs old, knows everything) mentions that the cheese we are enjoying almost surely was infested with live mites.<p>Hilarity ensued

Tsk. This is in line with the new regulations allowing for insects(or products thereof, like powder) in your food.<p>Enjoy your proteines! :-&gt;

Would someone with a severe allergy to wasp venom go into anaphylactic shock from eating this? I know a guy who works in a vineyard and has to take some pretty nasty wasp venom shots every couple months in case he gets stung.

As a curious kid I was given an invaluable piece advice from my dad:<p>“Don’t look at your food.”

Now I want to slice up some fig newtons to see what might be found.

figs are pollinated by those wasps = kill wasps = no figs...

One thing people don’t always know is that all figs have _at least_ one dead wasp inside. That’s how they get pollinated.

Id love to know which other organic fruits or veggies are prone to having &quot;free riders&quot; mixed in with the produce

I know they are safe to eat, but now I never want to eat a fig again! I was never that fond of them in the first place...

I wonder how Muslims and Turks reconcile insects being haram and dried figs containing them. Anyone care to explain?

From time to time I buy dried figs, apricots, plums etc from Costco. Next time I&#x27;ll be sure to check haha

An old saying: worse than finding a bug inside a fruit while eating it, is to find only the half of the bug.

.. a neighbours 6 yr old daughter had to be rushed to the ER and was sourced back to the figs she ate minutes before. She had to be intubated, that&#x27;s how serious her esophageal constriction and anaphylactic shock was. While rare, those with growing&#x2F;compromised immune systems should be aware, esp. Organic since no chemicals are used.

That means these figs are edible.

“inadvertent consumption of arthropods isn’t going to harm you”

I got figs from Trader Joe&#x27;s with black mold in them.

oh oh, I love these figs and I eat them a lot!

Disgusting. I stopped eating figs years ago

truly organic

Just ate one these 5 mins ago...

Extra protein

are you sure its not an greek fig?

Never again

alfatoxin is a also a (much bigger) issue for peanut butter<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;pmc&#x2F;articles&#x2F;PMC9489356&#x2F;#:~:text=One%20hundred%20percent%20(100%25),to%20382.9%20%CE%BCg%2Fkg" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;pmc&#x2F;articles&#x2F;PMC9489356&#x2F;#:~:tex...</a>).