Most commercially and home grown produced figs are self-pollinating, only a few wild fig species require wasps to pollinate them. So most people will only ever see wasp-free figs.
Oh thank god.
I know commercial farming is usually terrible, but this bit just seems like a win
Mostly it’s commercial animal farming that is heinously immoral. The big problems with commercial crop farming is the change to landscape (and therefore ecosystem) and reduction of native species and diversity due to farming of one specific species. These can be mitigated (if humans cared), obviously the animal farming problems too, but the animal cruelty is way more evil, and harder to fix institutionally.
I’m pretty sure about these things, but I am not an expert on these specific matters. Never trust some rando as a source. Always do your own research. And even then be careful….. we live in some weird ass times
How can people not believe in basic evolution when we have created self-pollinating figs
Though i once saw a bug crawl out of a ripe fig, just as i was about to eat it.
Better than finding half a bug in the fig after your first mouthful
It was a hell of a surprise when I cut open a peach and the pit was smaller and softer than usual and it split in two in my hands and a little slightly drowsy looking winged ant crawled out of one of the halves and started walking around on the counter. Little guy must have had such a long journey. I don't know how the hell they got INSIDE the pit.
Ah btw, ground coffee literally has ground bugs in it. To the point, that some people get allergic to it.
Everything we eat has allowable amounts of bugs, it's everwhere.
High Protein Coffee
at some point, we'll probably be eating bug flour on purpose for sustainability reasons
Yum!
When do the bugs enter the coffee, and does me grinding my own coffee change anything?
Its specifically cockroaches they are talking about and ground coffee. If you grind your own beans and don't see any cockroaches or bugs, then your coffee is roach free.
Humans get allergies to cockroaches really easy. Living in cockroach infested areas will eventually create allergies, people who handle cocraches get allergies, it's not a question of if it's a question of when.
So if you have developed cockroach allergies you risk going into anaphylactic shock if you go anywhere where ground coffee is in the air like a gas station or coffee shop. If you aren't griding your own beans, there is some roach in your bean soup.
I had no idea allergies or cockroaches worked like that and I was better off beforehand.
FYI they are very fucking small nowhere near as big as in this image. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fig_wasp
Forcing her way through the ostiole, the mated mature female often loses her wings and most of her antennae. To facilitate her passage through the ostiole, the underside of the female's head is covered with short spines that provide purchase on the walls of the ostiole.
In depositing her eggs, the female also deposits pollen she picked up from her original host fig. This pollinates some of the female flowers on the inside surface of the fig and allows them to mature. After the female wasp lays her eggs and follows through with pollination, she dies.[15]
After pollination, there are several species of non-pollinating wasps that deposit their eggs before the figs harden. These wasps act as parasites to either the fig or possibly the pollinating wasps.
As the fig develops, the wasp eggs hatch and develop into larvae. After going through the pupal stage, the mature male’s first act is to mate with a female - before the female hatches. Consequently, the female will emerge pregnant. The males of many species lack wings and cannot survive outside the fig for a sustained period of time. After mating, a male wasp begins to dig out of the fig, creating a tunnel through which the females escape.[16]
Once out of the fig, the male wasps quickly die. The females find their way out, picking up pollen as they do. They then fly to another tree of the same species, where they deposit their eggs and allow the cycle to begin again.
If you look at the detail in the ghosty wasp, it’s clear that it’s just an edited image of a wasp pasted onto a fig
nowhere as big as in this image
Yeah when they're alive, but everyone knows you grow larger when you become a ghost
I went and looked that up on my own and I could've just clicked into the comments?!
When i came to the post there were no comments to quell my worries so i had to check and share what i found :D
This post is informative, horrifying, and indeed very, very spoopy.
TIL figs aren’t vegan
I'm a vegan, although not super strict. But I knew some terror vegans who do not consider vigs vegan.
The definition of "vegan" differs. Like, I don't like products that had a nervous system. So technically I could eat oysters. But some vegans consider oranges not to be vegan because there might be an animal product in the pesticides used on oranges. Some claim they only use plant based products, but they get mad when I ask them about fungi, as their cell structure looks more like an animal cell than a plant cell (I love to make terror vegans mad).
Being vegan means you buy products which fit your idea of being vegan.
And sadly for some it means you need to be a fucking asshole to anyone you meet.
Regarding your last paragraph: that's unrelated. There are also lots of insufferably vocal meat eaters who feel personally attacked when someone else doesn't religiously stuff themselves with meat every meal.
I know zero (0) vocal vegans but 3 meat eaters who make a point on hating vegans and sometimes make it sound like they eat extra meat to spite vegans.
One of them once said to me a restaurant can only be good if it has no vegetarian options.
Idk isn't that like saying all animal pollinated plants are not vegan?
Well, this one’s got a literal animal inside of it… Is all I’m saying
I’m a level five vegan. I don’t eat anything that Casts a shadow
This is why fig newtons taste like delicious hate
I use them when I need to channel the ghosts of 1000 angry wasps.
False. Wasps don't have souls.
Hornets on the other hand... I'll see you in hell.
Would this render figs off limits for vegans and vegetarians? 🤔
Vegetarian is fine, there is no flesh. Vegetarianism is typically a dietary restriction, rather than a philosophical one.
Vegan: it depends. Cultivating figs may be seen as expotation, like bee's honey is; regardless of the insect's actual life or wellbeing. Each individual person decides what counts as vegan.
I don't see the point in this level of specificity, because by eating anything at all you consume fungal spores, tiny mites, microbes etc. Plants are also alive. So there is clearly a line where life is permittably consumed.
If 'experiencing suffering' is that line, insects do not seem capable of it, only responding to basic stimuli. I once watched a one trying to eat its own partially severed head, turning it in its front legs while its mouth parts rapidly twitched. It evidently had no comprehension.
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