SYgle>Industry Information>Gross reason figs aren't suitable for vegetarians will put you off them forever

Gross reason figs aren't suitable for vegetarians will put you off them forever

Column: industry Tag: fig,vegetarian,animal Published: 2022-07-18 14:47 Source: www.mirror.co.uk Author: Danielle Kate Wroe

Gross reason figs aren

Do you know the truth about Figs? (Stock Image) (Image: Getty Images)

Figs are a healthy and delicious fruit, so a good snack choice for everyone, right? Wrong.

It turns out that they aren't actually suitable for vegetarians - and the reason might put you off them for life.

It turns out that figs contain insects. And they're actually not technically a fruit - they're a flower.

When wasps pollinate figs, they can often get stuck inside - permanently.

Edible figs always have at least one dead female wasp stuck inside, which isn't good news for people trying to avoid meat.

Even meat eaters will most likely turn their nose up at the thought of eating an insect inside a fig!

Gross reason figs aren

Wasps are inside figs - yikes! (Stock Image) ( Image: Getty Images)

You won't find a whole wasp in the fig though - when a female wasp dies inside a fig, an enzyme in the fruit breaks down her carcass into protein.

The fig basically eats the wasp, and makes it into part of the fruit - yuck! Isn't nature strange?

Farmers actually buy bags of wasps in order to control the number of wasps each plant can eat.

Here are some more disgusting food facts which may stop you from trusting food forever:

·To qualify for safe consumption, ketchup is required to contain no more than 30 fruit flies per 100 grams
·The vanilla flavouring in some foods comes from a secretion made by beavers
·The average jar of peanut butter may contain four or more rodent hairs
·Many gummy sweets are made from pigskin, cattle bones, and cattle hide
·Hot dogs can contain traces of human hair, skin and nails - and other meats
·Jelly beans and other glazed sweets are commonly coated in hardened insect secretions

We don't know about you, but that's made some of our favourite foods seem a lot less appetising.

So, in short, if you've eaten figs and ketchup, you have almost definitely eaten both wasps and fruit flies.

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