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s5ma6n | 3 years ago

On a side note, try to keep eating figs in dried form at a moderate amount or avoid altogether if the source is "not reputable".

Dried figs are very susceptible to Aflatoxin B1(1) which is a very potent carcinogen from fungi. US food safety regulations allow 2-10 times more aflatoxin B1 in food compared to EU.

During my work, I had a chance to visit dried fig producers and saw even a couple of contaminated figs spreading to the rest of the stock like wildfire.

What you can do is to check your dried figs under UV light, and it should not shine. Here's an example image(2) I found.

Source: I have worked in the company as a machine vision engineer to develop aflatoxin detection systems with UV light.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aflatoxin_B1

2: https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/21073?page...

discuss

order

carb|3 years ago

This is mentioned in the write-up actually near the end! The author notes on some fungus found and photographed.

mjh2539|3 years ago

Say I want to test figs that I grow and dry myself; reading the article, it looks like all I need to do is get a 365nm light and throw out the ones that have green/yellow inflorescence. Is that correct? How many watts should the light be?

MrDresden|3 years ago

Would fresh figs be less likely to carry the aflatoxin generating fungus?

pvaldes|3 years ago

High concentrations of salt or sugar act as an universal preservative. A dried fig shouldn't have fungus grow unless harvested after rain, or in a non mature state, or stored for too long in humid conditions.

White powder in the surface of dried fruits is not bad necessarily. Is a common sign of accumulation of fructose crystals that ooze during the drying process. Dried persimmons have it also. This powdery coat is desirable and adds a delicious floral taste, so is an error to wash the fig before eating it. Unless the fruit has been treated with something and it smells like chemicals shouldn't be a problem at all.

Smyrna [1] type figs will always have remains of fig-wasps inside. You can't produce a Smyrna without fig wasps. They are known as the best tasting figs exactly by this. The fig wasp pollinates the fruit and the fig seeds add a very desired crunchy and almond flavored taste to the sugary flesh. Much better than the other types of figs by a mile. Wasps are a few millimeters only and don't taste line anything.

Smyrna figs can be cultured only in Mediterranean and hot climates. If you don't want wasps, can be easily avoided buying only the common varieties of figs that never had seeds inside. The origin of the product in a "cold" area will guarantee this.

[1] (Smyrna is a Turkish city famous by its figs that named an entire category, so lets assume that Turkish figs are "Smyrna" type and not "common" or "San Pedro").

ge96|3 years ago

well that's a cool application of machine vision, TIL

noduerme|3 years ago

How does this look on a dried fig? I remember eating plenty when I was a child that had some whitishness on the outside.

boringg|3 years ago

Can you define a reputable source?

unglaublich|3 years ago

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gameman144|3 years ago

The US lags behind some safety measures, but leads in others. The US was one of the first countries to ban DDT, established food safety inspection way before other countries, established OSHA well before workplace safety had worldwide focus, and so on. It's also been late to the party in other areas.

When evaluating why rules might differ between countries, the less strict rule shouldn't necessarily be interpreted as "putting corporations before health" or the like; it's absolutely possible that US consumer safety bodies determined that the added risk from some tradeoff isn't high enough to warrant the additional cost, but some other cultures have different risk tolerances.

Such tradeoffs are very normal and very okay for regulatory bodies to do (provided they're doing so with sound justifications, which I haven't seen any reason to doubt here).

jeffwask|3 years ago

Because Reagan sold everyone out to corporate greed in the 80's and it's been going straight down from there. Profit above all. Year over year growth to infinity or die.

tim333|3 years ago

The US probably has more rights for corporations than anywhere else in the world. That's not all bad for the US. It means with most global industries the corporate HQ and a lot of the money ends up in the US.

seanicus|3 years ago

Lol loving the complicated answers to this question but as an American I'll tell you that I live in an ontologically evil country that only cares that you survive long enough to reach the height of your productivity. After that you can go kick rocks/suffer death by cancer (and make sure it's on your own dime). 9 times out of 10 the US will consistently pick capital over people.

bsg75|3 years ago

Because many politicians see individual enrichment as a goal over law making. Corporations pay to prevent consumer protections that would limit their revenue.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobbying

scotty79|3 years ago

US law serves only one thing. Profit. It doesn't matter if it's food safety or criminal justice. You'll find horrible laws everywhere and when you ask why, then the answer will be that they make somebody some money.

codeulike|3 years ago

The US is run by and for corporations

CWuestefeld|3 years ago

That seems to be the opposite of what we watched happen over the past 3 years during the pandemic. You'll remember how much of a hole the USA got in at the beginning, when the CDC's own test was broken but they wouldn't let anybody else do the test either. So we lost the first, most important, weeks in being able to monitor the progress of the virus. And since then, the FDA has steadfastly prevented anyone from creating a vaccine that's effective against whatever happens to be the current variant.

classified|3 years ago

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thisisauserid|3 years ago

Another instance of the fat cats in Washington doing the bidding of Big Fig!