With a good amount of vitamin E, vitamin C, and calcium, these dried fruits can give your skin a much-needed boost. These active ingredients can work as antioxidants to clear out free radicals and prevent them from causing oxidative stress, which leads to wrinkles, age spots, and other blemishes. It can also improve skin elasticity, to keep you looking younger for longer. [4] Bone Density Landranco, Guido (2001). Mediċina popolari ta' l-imgħoddi fil-gżejjer Maltin[ Popular medicine of the past in the Maltese islands] (in Maltese). Valletta, Malta: Klabb Kotba Maltin. ISBN 99909-75-97-3. What’s more, a combination of fruit extracts — including fig extract — was shown to exhibit antioxidant effects on skin cells, decrease collagen breakdown, and improve the appearance of wrinkles in a test-tube and animal study ( 22).

In cool climates such as the UK, figs usually produce two crops a year, but only the first of these usually ripens:The Aydin Mountain region also boasts high quality, unpolluted sand soil; night time temperatures over 20 Degrees Celsius; 220 days without frost; big day-night temperature difference; and glacier-molten water irrigation. All extremely important for quality fig production. Table 1 shows the results for some selected mycotoxins found in individual figs from the 2017 and 2018 harvests for which a full data set can be found in supporting information Table S2. In addition to aflatoxins, these twelve other metabolites have been selected in terms of having been reported more widely in other matrices and were also found to be present in multiple figs in different categories.

You may also notice a white powder on some dried figs. This is called bloom. The bloom is rich in nutrients, and it is one of the precious features of high quality figs.More human studies are needed to better understand the relationship between figs and heart health. May help manage blood sugar levels Insects are the biggest threat to Brown Turkey fig trees because many of them cause the diseases described above. Fig mites are responsible for fig mosaic, and vinegar flies and dried fruit beetles cause fruit souring. You can prevent these pests naturally with neem oil, horticultural oil, or insecticidal soap. Beauvericin (BEA) was found in 36% of the 2017 figs but only in 2% of the 2018 figs BEA is one of the so-called emerging Fusarium mycotoxins (Jajic et al. 2019) which has been reported predominantly as occurring in cereals and was previously found in dried figs (Di Sanzo et al. 2018). As an example of one of the more obscure fungal metabolites, levels of bikaverin were found in 19% of figs from 2017 but in only 3% figs from 2018. Bikaverin is a reddish pigment produced by different fungal species, most of them from the genus Fusarium (Limón et al. 2010) and has not been previously reported in dried figs although probably not specifically sought. Animal studies have also shown improvements in total cholesterol, HDL (good) cholesterol, and triglyceride levels when supplementing with fig leaf extract ( 12, 13). Many believed that figs were the super fruit of all time in the Ancient Greek world. Are Turkish Figs Good for You?

The Mediterranean climate is the most excellent climate to grow figs. Yet, most figs came from several microclimates that provide more than an excellent environment to grow figs. The method performance for 43 metabolites in terms of recoveries and limits of detection (LOD) are provided in supporting information Table S1. Within-laboratory repeatability ( n = 7) was found to range between 6.0 and 12.4% for aflatoxins in dried figs (Sulyok et al. 2020). Aflatoxins in figs from 2017 and 2018 harvests The most important health benefits of dried figs include its ability to strengthen bones, lower blood pressure, optimize digestion, aid in weight loss, and regulate diabetic symptoms, among others. SkinCareFusarium strains from moldy fig fruit collected in Italy were found to be capable of producing fusaric acid, beauvericin (BEA), fumonisin B 1 (FB1), FB2, and fusaproliferin (Moretti et al. 2010). Fusarium is an agent causing endosepsis (internal rot) in fig fruit and it is a source of widespread infection in fig orchards in Turkey (Kosoglu et al. 2011) resulting in extensive contamination with FB1 and FB2. Cyclopiazonic acid (CPA) and β-nitropropionic acid (NPA) have also been found to be produced by Aspergillus flavus isolated from dried figs (Basegmez and Heperkan 2015). In a survey on Alternaria toxins in various foods, all fig samples were found to contain tenuazonic acid (TeA) at concentrations up to 1728 μg/kg (Lopez et al. 2016). Nine metabolites (AFB1, OTA, ochratoxin-α, kojic acid, emodin, altenuene, alternariol methyl ether, brevianamide F, and tryptophol) have been quantified at low levels in white and dark figs from Croatia (Petrić et al. 2018). Petrić J, Šarkanj B, Mujić I, Mujić A, Sulyok M, Krska R, Šubarić D, Jokić S (2018) Effect of pretreatments on mycotoxin profiles and levels in dried figs. Arh Hig Rada Toksikol 69:328–333 Figs may have some beneficial effects on the skin, especially in people with allergic dermatitis — or dry, itchy skin as a result of allergies.