10 ms·

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 susceptibl

by s5ma6n 4y 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aflatoxin_B1 2: https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/21073?page=11 https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/21073?page...

noduerme 4y 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.
- s5ma6n 4y ago
  They are not noticeable under visible light, so contaminated figs look totally normal except under UV and/or IR light. You can check out the link (2) above or this one: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Sample-photographs-taken-for-detection-of-aflatoxin-formation-on-dried-figs_fig3_293172052 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Sample-photographs-taken...
ge96 4y ago
well that's a cool application of machine vision, TIL
unglaublich 4y ago
[flagged]
- virgildotcodes 4y ago
  We allow much more money in our politics than a lot of other countries. Many other countries ban corporate donations to political parties entirely. https://www.idea.int/data-tools/question-countries-view/529/Europe/cnt https://www.idea.int/data-tools/question-countries-view/529/...
  - ZiiS 4y ago
    Many countries require corporate donations are slightly obfuscated. No country has ever been effective in stopping them.
    - ianai 4y ago
      Just because it’s not perfect doesn’t mean it’s not good or can’t be productive. But I have to also think of all the ways prohibitions have failed. Possibly, trying to find ways to make government officials less susceptible to outside influence in non traditional ways. Or, in the case of police, paying much better than minimum wage. Where I am, I think they make something like 42,000/yr. Or maybe they just all need some meditation practice? Some mindfulness and maybe they won’t think they need to soak up so much money.
  - snowwrestler 4y ago
    The U.S. also bans corporate donations to political parties and candidates. https://www.idea.int/data-tools/region-view/26/55 https://www.idea.int/data-tools/region-view/26/55 Corporate political influence in the U.S. depends primarily on the popularity of the products, jobs, and investment returns they produce. And successful companies create rich people, who sometimes make a lot of personal donations to politicians and parties. That gets lumped in with corporate influence depending on the details, even though they are personal donations.
- gameman144 4y 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).
MrDresden 4y ago
Would fresh figs be less likely to carry the aflatoxin generating fungus?
- pvaldes 4y 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").
  - Alex3917 4y ago
    > You can't produce a Smyrna without fig wasps. You can actually just hand pollinate them, as long as you have a caprifig tree. There are lots of tutorials on YouTube. It’s starting to take off as a trend among cold weather growers in places like New England.
carb 4y ago
This is mentioned in the write-up actually near the end! The author notes on some fungus found and photographed.
boringg 4y ago
Can you define a reputable source?
mjh2539 4y 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?
- Abishek_Muthian 4y ago
  Here are better photographs of contaminated Figs I found on Research Gate[1]. [1] https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Sample-photographs-taken-for-detection-of-aflatoxin-formation-on-dried-figs_fig3_293172052 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Sample-photographs-taken...

by s5ma6n 4y ago

noduerme 4y 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.

s5ma6n 4y ago
They are not noticeable under visible light, so contaminated figs look totally normal except under UV and/or IR light. You can check out the link (2) above or this one: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Sample-photographs-taken-for-detection-of-aflatoxin-formation-on-dried-figs_fig3_293172052 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Sample-photographs-taken...

ge96 4y ago

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

unglaublich 4y ago

[flagged]

virgildotcodes 4y ago
We allow much more money in our politics than a lot of other countries. Many other countries ban corporate donations to political parties entirely. https://www.idea.int/data-tools/question-countries-view/529/Europe/cnt https://www.idea.int/data-tools/question-countries-view/529/...
- ZiiS 4y ago
  Many countries require corporate donations are slightly obfuscated. No country has ever been effective in stopping them.
  - ianai 4y ago
    Just because it’s not perfect doesn’t mean it’s not good or can’t be productive. But I have to also think of all the ways prohibitions have failed. Possibly, trying to find ways to make government officials less susceptible to outside influence in non traditional ways. Or, in the case of police, paying much better than minimum wage. Where I am, I think they make something like 42,000/yr. Or maybe they just all need some meditation practice? Some mindfulness and maybe they won’t think they need to soak up so much money.
- snowwrestler 4y ago
  The U.S. also bans corporate donations to political parties and candidates. https://www.idea.int/data-tools/region-view/26/55 https://www.idea.int/data-tools/region-view/26/55 Corporate political influence in the U.S. depends primarily on the popularity of the products, jobs, and investment returns they produce. And successful companies create rich people, who sometimes make a lot of personal donations to politicians and parties. That gets lumped in with corporate influence depending on the details, even though they are personal donations.
gameman144 4y 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).

MrDresden 4y ago

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

pvaldes 4y 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").
- Alex3917 4y ago
  > You can't produce a Smyrna without fig wasps. You can actually just hand pollinate them, as long as you have a caprifig tree. There are lots of tutorials on YouTube. It’s starting to take off as a trend among cold weather growers in places like New England.

carb 4y ago

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

boringg 4y ago

Can you define a reputable source?

mjh2539 4y 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?

Abishek_Muthian 4y ago
Here are better photographs of contaminated Figs I found on Research Gate[1]. [1] https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Sample-photographs-taken-for-detection-of-aflatoxin-formation-on-dried-figs_fig3_293172052 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Sample-photographs-taken...