About The Apricot

Malatya's climate is ideal for the production of high quality apricots. It results in a fruit whose aroma, taste and colour are superior to all others. The proportion of dry material in Malatya's apricots is nearly %30 whereas it is only %20 in other apricots.

The apricot is specified by many medical and food experts as a natural source of vitamins and energy.

The apricot is an extremely versatile fruit. A variety of products can be produced from the apricot, such as: jam, nectar, jelly, juice, Turkish delight, dried fruits, pulp and sweet meat. Apricots are also used for production of pastry, ice cream, yoghurt, pickles and candied fruit.

The apricot kernel is also a useful product. It's oils, is used in the medical industry and it's shell is used in other industrial fields as a material.

Malatya's apricot production comprises %35 of the international dried apricot market. %95 of the apricots produced in Malatya are exported. This single product brings 100 million US$ in to Turkey each year.

The following is a summary of some of the health benefits of the apricot:

• - The apricot contains high levels of potassium which is benefical in the treatment of cardiac insuffiency, disseases of kidney, hepatitis and cirrhosis.
• - It helps prevent mental fetigue by supplying essential nutrients.
• - It increases blood production and prevent diabetes.
• - It supplies nutrients for the regeneration of diseased and deceased parts of the liver.
• - It promotes the healty growth of bones.
• - It is high in fibre and thus improves istentinal efficiency.
• - It prevents ulcers of the stomach and duodenom.
• - It has a protective property against cancer.
• - It improves cardiac efficiency.
• - It contains carbohydrate and is therefore a ready source of energy

About The Fig

HISTORY OF FIG

Figs, whose story starts with “Adam and Eve”, are accepted as sacred fruit and commonly consumed during Christmas all over the world. There are traces that figs were cultivated in their motherland Anatolia in the years of 3000-2000 B.C. and they were spread through the Mediterranean from Anatolia within time.



Mother nature has her own amazing ways of perpetuating the species of her many forms of animal and plant life. Some are amorous and some cold, and some are joyous and some tragic, but one that involves a peculiar combination of them all –that brings together both animal and vegetable life and true with love spurned- is the love life of a fig.

Just as there is the male and female of animal life, the two sexes exist in vegetable life. Just as the male must fertilize the female to reproduce the species of other forms of animal and vegetable life, the pollen of the male or Capri fig tree must be transmitted to the female or Myrna tree for the Myrna tree fruit mature and ripen and acquire natural sugars to become an edible fruit. But the male fig tree, Capri, is a helpless and massive tree with his roots penetrated deeply in the soil. He must rely upon innumerable little feminine cupids, Blastophagas, to do what he would no doubt be most willing to do for himself if he could.



Female Myrna Fig tree is alone and its tiny fruits shall never mature and become sweet and delicious and nutritious if not pollinated by male Capri fig tree pollens transported by hundreds of tiny winged cupids named Blastrophagas. This is the “Caprifigation” of the fig tree. There is nothing immoral about it –they are just house guests. Each tiny seed in each Capri fig is an individual nest for a tiny egg laid by a Blastra phagas. As strange as it may seem, in no other place could it possibly be hatched. What is even more strange, the male Capri fig itself and male Myrna fig would soon wither, die and drop off if were not so “Caprified”. One gender can not multiply without the other and that in itself is a wonder of mother nature.

NUTRITION INFORMATION

Typical values Per 100 grams (4-6 figs)