This fruit actually hides a little-known story that makes it off-limits to vegans, find out why.
For several years now, veganism has been an integral part of our lives, with this eating pattern adopted by just over 2% of the French population, and this figure continues to climb.
Veganism is a lifestyle in its own right that rejects the consumption of animal products. Most fruit is allowed as a natural product, but one is actually the result of animal action.
The fig is a flower, not a fruit
In reality, the fig is not a real fruit, but an inverted flower. It’s a flower that blooms inside a pouch, and requires pollination.
It’s at this point that the main character of our story enters the scene: the fig wasp. The wasp is inseparable from the fig, as it is she who enables the flower to receive pollen, and thus become the fruit we eat.
However, we don’t eat all figs. Only female figs are edible for humans, while the males, which we don’t eat, are the ones pollinated by wasps. Even so, wasps sometimes make a mistake and accidentally get into female figs.
The wasp dies in the fig… and we eat it?
When she enters the flower, the fig wasp breaks her antennae and wings, leaving her captive. She then lays her eggs, and it’s her daughters who emerge alive, fertilized by the new males.
So when we eat a fig, we’re actually eating a dead wasp. However, don’t panic: the fig completely dissolves the insect thanks to an enzyme, which transforms it into protein.
So we’re not actually ingesting any wasps, but this phenomenon is enough to reopen the debate on whether or not vegans can eat figs.