I am sure we all have an idea of what veganism is all about, but I will still give a brief description anyways.
“Veganism is a way of living which seeks to exclude, as far as is possible and practicable, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing, or any other purpose” – This is the definition given by the Vegan society.
The main thing is that vegans do not want to eat any food from livestock, they prefer vegetables instead.
When it comes to figs, wasps play a major role in the pollination of figs, and this always results in the death of that wasp.
Because wasp dies and digests into figs, a lot of people have considered it not to be vegan food.
This is the reason why there is constant debate about it.
Many people also believe that the crunchy things inside the figs are dead wasps, and that is false, they are not dead wasps rather they are seeds.
Fig pollination occurs naturally and the relationship between the fig and wasp has mutual benefits.
Are There Any Other Fruits That Vegans Don’t Eat?
First, we can say a fig is a fruit it is more of an inverted flower. There aren’t a lot of fruit with these same characteristics. Well, orchid fruit is another plant pollinated by a wasp, so I guess this can be considered a fruit that vegans will not eat.
Vegan Food That Tastes Like Figs?
There is just one food that is tastes like figs and that is the date fruit.
Dates have similar characteristics with figs, they are both sweet (but dates have more sugar in them than figs), there is just a slight difference in flavor.
Figs have raisin flavor while dates have a touch of prune with more sugar. Vegans can eat date as it is purely a fruit.
In addition to dates, you can also substitute raisin, prunes, and apricots depending upon the recipe. You can read more about figs alternatives here.
What Type of Figs Can Vegans Eat?
All figs that are not pollinated naturally which means there is no involvement of wasp during the process.
A lot of the commercial figs purchased in stores did not undergo wasp pollination. Most were sprayed with plant hormone that triggers the ripening process. So, if you are a vegan, you can look for commercial figs to consume since wasps do not die in the process of fig pollination.
An example of a vegan fig is brown Turkish figs as they are not pollinated by wasps.
Similarly, commercial food products like fig newtons and fig rolls can be considered vegan if the figs are not pollinated by wasps. So, make sure to read the ingredient details on the product before you purchase them.
What Type of Figs Vegans Cannot Eat?
Figs that are pollinated naturally, that is the ones that had to wait for a female wasp to pollinate them and bear fruit. Vegans can’t eat this as the wasp will die in the process.
To summarize, if you consider the death of the wasp during the pollination process and they being digested inside the fig before it becomes a fruit as a natural process and if it doesn’t go against your ethics of veganism then figs are vegan.
