What Are the Benefits of Barbary Fig Fruit, How Do You Eat It, and What Does It Taste Like?

Fruit is an essential part of a healthy diet, but eating common fruits like apples and bananas can get boring. Check out the Barbary fig if you want to mix up your daily fruit intake. 

Also known as the prickly pear or nopal, the Barbary fig is a cactus that produces edible fruit and pads. Both parts of the plant provide crucial nutrients and health benefits, but many people have yet to discover this fascinating cactus. 

Depending on your location, you may not be able to buy prickly pear fruit at your local grocery store yet, but this food’s nutritional value may make it worth the extra effort to find a specialty fruit supplier. Learn about the Barbary fig fruit’s origins, health benefits, and more. 

Barbary fig fruit is a pear-shaped fruit that grows from Opuntia mesacantha, an evergreen cactus. This plant is traditionally found in coastal dunes, pine forests, and sandy riverbeds. In the United States, the prickly pear plant grows in hot and sunny Southern states like California, Florida, Georgia, Texas, and New Mexico. 

The Barbary fig cactus grows rapidly, reaching heights of up to 20 feet. This plant grows beautiful orange, red, or yellow flowers between April and June.

The fig cactus has flat, fleshy leaves covered with barbed bristles. These edible leaves are commonly referred to as pads or nopales. Historically, some Native Americans boiled nopales and ate them as a vegetable. 

The pads also have traditional medicinal applications. For example, indigenous tribes in California and New Mexico heated nopales and applied them to the body to reduce inflammation. Other conditions that Native Americans treated with nopales include mumps, rheumatism, and open wounds. 

The cactus even produces an edible fruit that resembles a dark pink or yellow pear. Small barbed thorns known as “glochids” cover the fruit and the edible pads. These prickles can hook into your skin, though, so you should remove them carefully before consumption. 

The taste of prickly pear fruit varies depending on the color. The red-skinned fruit has a high ascorbic acid concentration, giving it a sweet, citrus-like taste. In contrast, the yellow-skinned fruit is a rich source of carotenoids, pigments that the human body converts into vitamin A. These compounds give the yellow prickly pear fruit a taste reminiscent of carrots and some squashes. 

When harvested young, the edible pads are tender and have a flavor that resembles green beans.

Barbary fig fruit is a versatile food you can eat in many different ways. First, though, you must properly prepare the fruit to ensure that you don’t get a mouthful of spiky glochids. 

One way to eat a prickly pear is to peel the fruit and eat it raw. You can follow these steps to remove the glochids:

• Grasp the Barbary fig fruit with sturdy tongs.
• Hold the fruit over an open flame from a candle, gas stovetop, or lighter to burn away the glochids.
• When the fruit cools, use a sharp knife to cut off the ends and slice it vertically.
• Peel the skin off the fruit and enjoy your glochid-free snack. 

You can also juice the fruit with the help of a canning distiller. The fruit releases juice if you freeze and thaw it over a bowl. 

Alternatively, you can use this food to make: 

• Candies
• Jams and jellies
• Lemonade
• Margaritas
• Preserves
• Salads
• Teas

This unique fruit is an excellent source of many essential nutrients. One cup (149 grams) of raw Barbary fig fruit provides: 

• Water: 131 grams
• Calories: 61
• Total lipids (fat): 0.76 grams
• Protein: 1.09 grams
• Carbohydrates: 14.3 grams
• Fiber: 5.36 grams
• Calcium: 83.4 mg
• Magnesium: 127 mg
• Potassium: 328 mg
• Vitamin C: 20.9 mg 

Prickly pear fruit has a high water concentration, so it can help you stay hydrated. 

This fruit is also a great source of dietary fiber. Experts recommend that most people eat 25–35 grams of fiber daily to aid digestion and regulate blood sugar. A single serving of Barbary fig fruit provides approximately 15% to 20% of the daily requirement. 

Barbary fig fruit also provides several essential minerals that promote bodily functions. For instance, the fruit contains a moderate amount of calcium. This mineral forms the structures of bones and teeth and also supports your other tissues. Calcium may decrease the risk of colorectal cancer, cardiovascular disease, and other conditions. 

Eating Barbary fig fruit can also provide a big dose of magnesium. Magnesium aids many chemical reactions and regulates nerve functions. Women aged 19 to 51 years should consume 310 to 320 mg of magnesium daily, and men in this age group should get 400 to 420 mg. Barbary fig fruit provides around 30% to 40% of the daily recommended value. 

Additionally, prickly pear fruit is a good source of potassium and vitamin C. Potassium is a mineral that balances fluid levels inside your cells and promotes nerve functions. Vitamin C helps the body recover from infections and wounds and helps build collagen.

Barbary fig fruit is a healthy food that provides many benefits. This low-fat food supplies many vital nutrients that can promote health. For example, it is a good source of kaempferol, a flavonoid that helps prevent cancer and heart disease. 

Some people believe that Barbary fig fruit also has anti-diabetic effects. However, research shows that this food doesn’t significantly alter glucose or insulin levels, so its usefulness as a tool to prevent or manage Type 2 diabetes remains unproven. 

Barbary fig fruit is typically very safe to eat as long as you properly remove the sharp glochids. Contact with the spines could cause an allergic reaction called sabra dermatitis, so you should always use gloves when handling prickly pear fruit. 

Despite this minor drawback, Barbary fig fruit is a delicious and nutritious food that can add variety to your diet. You can order this fruit online if your local grocery store doesn’t stock it or even grow the cactus yourself if you live in an appropriate climate.