While snacking on a Fig Newtons may spare you 10 calories, this snack also has 9 grams more sugar than a Rip Van Wafel. Here’s how a Rip Van Wafel stacks up against a Fig Newton: Though since their introduction, people have expressed skepticism towards the actual health benefits of Nabisco’s Fig Newtons: are they really as healthy as fresh figs? Or are they just sugar-filled cakes, cookies, disguised as a superfood? Their Fig Newtons, fig rolls filled with fig paste produced through an extrusion process, were first baked in 1891 and been marketed as a delicious solution for digestion issues. One company that has profited off the digestive benefits of figs is Nabisco. And most commonly, figs are used for their fiber content to aid digestion. Interestingly, both the leaves and natural latex from fig plants have been shown to exhibit antitumor activities against multiple human cancers. In Bengal, the fruit is called Dumur, and believed to be good for heart ailments. Today figs, high in fiber, calcium, iron, and potassium, are used in medicines and prepared in foods for healing and health. 1st Century Roman Philosopher, Pliny the Elder, wrote of figs as “the best food that can be taken by those who are brought low by long sickness.” Researches have even observed Chimpanzees self medicating against bacteria, parasites, and tumors, with wild fig bark and leaves.
In the Bible, when Hezekiah, King of Judah, was sick with boils, his servants applied a paste of crushed figs on his skin. Some Banyans can shelter 20,000 people.īeyond their sheltering abilities, many have also recorded Ficus species’ healing abilities. Hundreds of years after the Vedas, when Alexander the Great arrived in India in 326 BCE, he and his soldiers enjoyed the shade of the Banyan tree. In the ancient text, the Bhagavad Gita, the God Krishna tells that, “one who knows this tree is the knower of the Vedas.” In Hinduism, the Banyan tree is a reflection of the spiritual world: one’s roots are high above, with God, and one’s branches, the many facets of living, are below. Ficus benghalensis, the Indian Banyan, appears in much of its folklore. The tree’s dangling roots symbolize the many islands of Indonesia.įig trees are symbolic too in other Asian countries and cultures. The image of a strangler fig tree rests on the Indonesian coat of arms, as a symbol of unity and diversity. After strangler fig seeds are dropped high on other trees by birds or passing mammals, strangler figs envelope their host tree with thick, woody roots. Particularly intriguing, are strangler fig species which colonize a host tree. A fig then, is not technically a fruit, but a hollow ball of inverted flowers and seeds that must be pollinated by tiny wasps in Chinese, the fig is called “fruit without flowers.”īotanical illustration of a fig tree from 1751 They hide their blooms away inside their hollow figs.
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While most flowering plants display their blooms, Ficus species have no apparent flowers. No other fruit, or fruit tree, has held such a sway over human imagination, featuring in every major religion, influencing royalty, scientists, artists, and soldiers.įicus species are biologically surprising. Buddha found enlightenment under a fig tree they turn up in Hindu and Greek myths Egyptian Pharaohs took dried figs to their graves to sustain their soles Adam and Eve likely ate a fig, not an apple, in the Garden of Eden. Not only have fig trees, Ficus species, witnessed human history, they have also shaped and enriched our history.
Figs are among the oldest fruits consumed by humans.
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