.....The Surprising Truth About Wasps in this Fruit...
Figs are in season and ready to be sliced onto charcuterie boards, mixed into jams, and tossed into fresh salads. But if you're a fan of the fig, you may have heard a rumor that's not so appetizing: that they're full of dead wasps. And if you're vegan, this may leave you questioning whether figs are actually vegan at all.
It is true that many trees that produce figs would go extinct without wasps, which are key pollinators that lay their eggs in the fruit of the trees. This relationship dates back to the time of the dinosaurs and is the source of the concern. Before you throw away your Fig Newtons out of fear you’re eating dead bugs, here’s what you should know about figs, wasps, and whether the fruit should be part of your vegan diet.
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 on your charcuterie board (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.
.......there's more....LINK

Figs are in season and ready to be sliced onto charcuterie boards, mixed into jams, and tossed into fresh salads. But if you're a fan of the fig, you may have heard a rumor that's not so appetizing: that they're full of dead wasps. And if you're vegan, this may leave you questioning whether figs are actually vegan at all.
It is true that many trees that produce figs would go extinct without wasps, which are key pollinators that lay their eggs in the fruit of the trees. This relationship dates back to the time of the dinosaurs and is the source of the concern. Before you throw away your Fig Newtons out of fear you’re eating dead bugs, here’s what you should know about figs, wasps, and whether the fruit should be part of your vegan diet.
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 on your charcuterie board (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.
.......there's more....LINK