When do figs ripen and come on the market, and what are their effects and benefits?

The fig, also known as Tian Sheng Zi, Ying Ri Guo, Wen Xian Guo, Nai Jiang Guo, and Mi Guo, is the dried receptacle of the plant Ficus carica of the mulberry family. Because it has separate male and female flowers hidden inside a sac-like receptacle, only flowers are visible from the outside and no fruit is seen, hence the name "fruitless flower" (fig). When do figs generally ripen and come on the market? What are their effects and benefits? Let's take a look together with the editor of Tuliu.com.

1. When do figs generally ripen and come on the market?

1. Figs generally begin to ripen and come on the market around mid-July, and this can continue until picking ends in November.

2. Due to latitude, region, and temperature differences. Figs in the south generally begin to ripen and come on the market in July, while in the north they are delayed until August or September.

2. The effects and benefits of figs

Traditional Chinese medicine holds that figs are sweet in taste and neutral in nature, entering the spleen and stomach meridians, and have the effects of strengthening the stomach and clearing the intestines, clearing heat and detoxifying, promoting lactation, and reducing swelling. They are suitable for lung heat with hoarseness, sore and swollen throat, carbuncles, swellings, scabies, and ringworm, chronic diarrhea, dysentery, or constipation, hemorrhoids, and rectal prolapse. “Suixiju Diet Spectrum” says they “clear heat, treat hemorrhoids, moisten the intestines, and benefit the throat.” “Compendium of Materia Medica” says they “open the stomach and stop diarrhea and dysentery.”

“Diannan Materia Medica” says they “can be applied to all unnamed swellings and toxins, carbuncles, gangrene, scabies, ringworm, tinea sores, yellow water sores, fish-mouth and genital sores, breast nodules, and broken smallpox sores.” Figs, whether used fresh or aged, taken internally or applied externally, used medicinally or as food, can all be called top-grade. Nutritional analysis shows that figs contain various sugars (such as glucose, fructose, sucrose, etc.), organic acids (such as citric acid, succinic acid, malic acid, oxalic acid, etc.), various enzymes (such as amylase, lipase, protease, etc.), and also vitamin C and minerals such as calcium, phosphorus, and iron. Researchers in cancer prevention and treatment in Japan and Jiangsu, China found that fig latex contains an anti-cancer component that can inhibit transplanted sarcoma in rats and spontaneous breast cancer in mice, delay the development of adenocarcinoma, leukemia, and lymphosarcoma, or cause them to regress, and has obvious anti-cancer, cancer-preventing, and immune-enhancing effects on the human body. Therefore, in recent years it has become popular around the world, especially favored by the elderly, women, and children, and has become a best-selling health food. Regularly eating figs can improve the defensive function of the cellular immune system, strengthen the constitution, resist and prevent cancer, and also reduce cancer pain and the side effects after radiotherapy and chemotherapy in cancer patients.

Fig leaves contain furanocoumarin substances. After using them, do not expose yourself to the sun, so as to avoid photosensitive dermatitis caused by allergic reaction of exposed skin to sunlight.