14 Fig Newtons Myths Debunked

These aren't your grandpa's Fig Newtons. The company made a pivot in 2012 to change the name, but familiar packages of this jammy, 133-year-old treat still regularly appear in shopping carts of fans of all ages. If you've got questions about the No. 3 best-selling cookie of the '90s, I'm happy to help debunk the myths. (As long as it involves eating cookies — or whatever these are.)

There's the tale about how Fig Newtons got its name, the thing with the wasp legs getting baked into the recipe, and confusion about who invented them in the first place. Are they even vegan, bro? Were they designed to be a medicinal pastry slash digestif? And what exactly is in that filling anyway?

Let's dive into the real story behind one of the very first commercially produced snacks in America. Grab a plate, a couple of Fig Newtons, and something to wash them down. You're gonna work up an appetite from all this stone-cold demystification.

There's a myth that almost seems true involving Sir Isaac Newton — the brilliant physicist with the "Interview with the Vampire" hair who was famous for gravity and motion discovery — and Fig Newtons being related. But despite having a similar family name, the two have never crossed paths.

Isaac Newton's gravitational theory involved a falling apple, but that's about as much press as he's ever gotten for snacks. Fig Newtons, however, owe their very name to a little New England town called Newton, Massachusetts. There, the trees were ripe with Fig Newtons, which fell gently upon the heads of children everywhere they went. (Kidding. Not trying to start yet another rumor about this.)

The Kennedy Biscuit company in Cambridge, Massachusetts had acquired the cookie recipe and dubbed it after a nearby town, as they did with all their treats. Other products featured names like Shrewsbury, Beacon Hill, and Harvard (although not as catchy as Newtons). It would be 7 years before the company would merge with many other bakeries to form the National Biscuit Company, aka Nabisco.

Nabisco may have launched Fig Newtons into the stratosphere, but the company didn't invent them. Instead, that honor goes to cookie guru Charles M. Roser. James Henry Mitchell — the guy who invented the machine that puts the filling in the pastry — had a little something to do with it, too.

Roser had been working for a small bakery in Philadelphia when he created an appetizing fig paste filling that was then sold to Kennedy Biscuit. Mitchell's cookie-making machine made fig-filled cookies possible, and the factory line was off to the races churning out the first Fig Newtons in 1891. (The machine created a tube of filling within an outer tube of pastry, essentially pumping out one never-ending Fig Newton that would then be cut and pressed into individual cookies.)

These days, plenty of home bakers post their own versions of these classic treats with some even mimicking the wrap-style pastry of the original factory. Still, some fans might prefer a cookie from the 1800s batch. As small business owner Don Moyer blogged, "A Fig Newton isn't at its peak until the package has been opened and the contents allowed to dry out for a month or more. An ancient one is pleasantly resistant and offers an obstinate chewiness that will always seem right to me."

Tragically, Massachusetts missed the chance to make Fig Newtons its official cookie. There was a time when someone briefly considered the Newton as a nod to its home state, but unfortunately, there was another delicious contender on the table.

Back in 1997, a bill sat in front of then-Governor William Weld. Massachusetts Senate majority leader Tomas Norton had sponsored the bill that would make the Toll House chocolate chip cookie the official state cookie. But, as the story goes, Governor Weld was a fan of Fig Newtons and had second thoughts about signing the bill into law. Ultimately, Weld went with chocolate over fig paste, and Toll House chocolate chip cookies have been the official state cookie ever since.

While it might seem like a Newtons got royally figged on that one, the Toll House chocolate chip cookie deserved the honor. It was invented in 1938 by Walpole, Massachusetts-born Ruth Graves Wakefield who ran a small inn (she called it The Toll House) where she served a little chocolate chip number she called the Toll House cookie. A year later, Wakefield sold the name Toll House and the cookie recipe to Nestle for a buck, which she reportedly was never paid. She died in 1977; 20 years before the state made it official with her cookie.

I've already used the term "cookie" many times in this article, but are Fig Newtons actually, y'know, cookies? Here's the story on the bite-sized cakes masquerading as cookies in the snack aisle.

For decades upon decades, Fig Newtons were marketed as cakes with early packaging from 1929 clearly featuring the phrase "Fig cake in its finest form." There were even broadcast ads in the '70s boasting about the "golden, flaky, tender, cakey outside" of the treats. But after decades spent living life as tiny cakes, Fig Newtons were rebranded as "chewy cookies" in the '80s — nearly 100 years after they were invented — and later dubbed, "One unique cookie," for ads.

So are Fig Newtons cookies or cakes? Brand marketing strategy aside, these bars appear to be both. With a soft, exterior pastry coating that some might consider to be cake-like, retailers still consistently stock these treats in the cookie section.Still, according to the brand's parent company, Mondelēz International, Fig Newtons are "classic, fig-flavored, chewy-center cookies." Case closed.

Fig Newtons would just be flat little cookies without their figgy insides. But in reality, you'll never find fruit inside Fig Newtons because figs aren't technically fruit — they're flowers.

This delicious bloom embodies what's known as an "inflorescence," or flowering cluster (also called an inverted flower) which presents as a bulb-type encasing around a collection of much smaller flowers, or, scientifically, a syconium. In its ripe, raw form, the whole fig — bulb to stem — can be eaten straight off of the tree.

These days, you can find figs in everything from pizza toppings to compote sandwiched under a burger bun, but nature's candy has been around since the dawn of civilization (give or take a few years). Researchers have discovered the presence of figs in archeological digs that date as far back as 5000 BC. Anthropological science is still fuzzy on whether those Stone Age fig fans were also tripped up on figs being flowers or fruit. Still, I can almost guarantee they knew that wasps had something to do with them since the fig-pollenating insects have been around for 240 million years.

There's been some buzz around the claims that Fig Newtons are filled with dead bugs (or pureed ones). But this myth is mostly a bust. If you want to eat bugs, there's a lane for that. And if you want to keep them as far away from your food as possible, there's a solution for that, too. While I'm not on the board at the FDA, I'm guessing that if insects had been incorporated into your Fig Newtons you would know about it. Even so, people still question whether the crunchy bits you actively chomp on might be bug parts. And the good news is, they're not.

Some figs ripen thanks to pollination by female fig wasps who crawl into the depths of an unripe fig, lay eggs from which new wasp siblings mate with each other (nature, am I right?), leaving the young females to eat their way out of the fig and repeat the process in a new fig. The original female wasp and her male offspring die inside the fig (an enzyme dissolves the bodies), and the now-pollinated flowers inside the bulb fully ripen. Those are the juicy fig flower-seeds you know and love, which are what you're crunching on in your Fig Newtons.

Maybe a more appropriate name would have been "Figs" Newtons because this cookie's signature fig paste is made from more than one type of fig. According to The Washington Post, a trio of black mission, Calimyrna, and Adriatic figs have been known to make up the sweet, chewy filling inside Fig Newtons.

Considering the three main flavor profiles of edible figs (berry, sugar, and honey), this Fig Newtons blend creates the perfect dynamic for a cookie-worthy paste. Black mission figs feature a fruity honey-berry flavor, whereas Calimyrna figs (California + Turkish smyrna figs) taste nutty and sweet, or sugar-like in flavor. Adriatic figs hit the third point of the flavor triangle with a berry-like sweetness. We may never know the actual recipe for Fig Newton filling, but as far as the fig part goes, it's a well-rounded mix.

In case you're still thinking about fig wasps, of these varieties only the Calimyrna fig tree requires that wasp style of pollination, according to UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences specialist Louise Ferguson. Other common figs — like black mission figs, as the Atlanta Journal-Constitution noted — get their rocks off the regular way: from bugs fluttering around the outside of the bulb and not dying on the inside.

Since the Fig Newtons recipe features a condensed paste made of actual figs, some have assumed that the cookies might pack just as many health benefits as a fresh fig, itself. But once those benefits are translated into a cookie, things look a little different.

Healthline notes that fresh figs are known to be a source of copper which boosts energy, metabolism, and strengthens connective tissue; while also providing brain and immune system supporting vitamin B6, as reported by the National Institutes of Health. As far as Fig Newtons go, you won't find vitamin B6 noted on the nutrition label since the FDA doesn't require that disclosure unless it's been added or is higher than 20% of the recommended daily value. But, unlike a single 40-gram fresh fig which has around 30 calories and 8 grams of carbs, a 29-gram serving of two Fig Newtons cookies clocks in at 110 calories and 22 grams of carbs, 12 grams of which are from added sugar.

It's the sugar content that throws a wet blanket on the nutritional value of the other vitamins and minerals. With the American Heart Association recommending no more than 36 grams of added sugar for men and 25 grams for women every day, that's possibly half your daily sugar intake in just two cookies. They might not be as healthy as fresh figs, but Fig Newtons can be a healthier cookie choice thanks to the nutrients in the fruity filling.

Even though many of us still call them by the artist formerly known as Fig Newtons, they're not called Fig Newtons anymore — they're "Newtons." Except they'll probably be called Fig Newtons for at least 700 more generations, or until they no longer exist — whichever comes first. (The manufacturer-designated shelf life on these things is 270 days, so they're ready to rock.)

Even with the unveiling of clearly marked packaging (Fig A: Newtons), it still took some people years to notice the switch that happened right before our eyes in 2012. After parent company Mondelēz International scooped up Nabisco (and therefore Fig Newtons) for the cool sum of $18.9 billion in 2000, it wasn't too long in Fig Newtons years before changes were made. The new name made sense, since the brand was also making changes to the inside of its cookie. "We needed to let fruit be the core of the brand as opposed to the fig," then-executive at Kraft Gary Osifchin told The New York Times, adding, "It was going to be hard for us to advance the Newtons brand with the baggage of the fig." Once "Fig" was gone from the name, a fruit-flavored cornucopia followed.

While non-fig flavors had already snuck in under the radar prior to 2012, it was the Fig Newtons to Newtons rebrand that year that officially welcomed the freshman class of fruit cookie bars to the product lineup. Newtons even debuted an office-based webseries centered around the new strawberry, triple berry, and apple cinnamon flavors taking over the formerly fig-centric work culture.

The brand seemed to be aiming for a new demographic (one that may have been averse to figs) with flavors that appeared ripe and ready to bust out of Figville. Limited edition flavors like Sweet Peach & Apricot Newtons hit the shelves, along with others like strawberry kiwi, raspberry yogurt, and strawberry shortcake, most of which were branded with a then on-trend "100% Whole Grain" banner. But while the whole grain aspect remained on the packaging, most of the flavor fanfare wasn't built to last.

As of 2024, the most commonly available flavors are usually strawberry and, well, fig with the occasional blueberry out-of-stock notice keeping hope alive. While it might help to count fat-free fig-flavored Newtons as a flavor of its own, we remember a time when just being itself was enough for this cookie.

As witnessed with the 2012 Newtons makeover, the former Fig Newtons brand started pitching hard to the younger crowd. It was a marketing campaign designed to showcase Newtons in a new light; one that had nothing to do with the misconception that dried fig bars are old-timey and should be wrapped in a hanky in someone's great-great-grandma's purse.

Even though Newtons had been selling like hotcakes stuffed with fig paste (raking in $106.4 million in 2011), marketing to a new demo required an adjustment. As Jeff Hilton of Integrated Marketing Group told The New York Times, "To a lot of people a fig means 'geriatric' and that's not good."

As of 2019, there were roughly 1 billion Newtons eaten each year which means either every single grandparent was putting in the snacktime hustle, or the new advertising strategy worked to some effect. Either way, Newtons seems to survive generation after generation, no matter the current cookie climate.

Combining Newtons cookies nutritional value with their affiliation with the senior set, they can't seem to escape the myth about them being good for, let's say, your gastrointestinal tract. But while I will one day happily nibble on Newtons from my rocking chair at the old folks' home, they're probably not gonna be my go-to for extra fiber.

A serving of two Newtons does provide some dietary fiber which is probably best-known for aiding constipation, but it's also good for regulating weight and keeping diseases like cancer, diabetes, and heart ailments at bay, notes the Mayo Clinic. That being said, there are just 2 grams of dietary fiber per serving, which adds up to a lowly 8% of the recommended daily intake. Figs might have been considered the food of the gods back in ancient Greece, and fig rolls may have once been a digestive aid of the late 1800s. But when these fibrous treats are dressed up as Newtons, Stanford University professor Christopher Gardner tells the American Heart Association, "At the end of the day, they're just cookies."

The struggle is real if you're looking for store-bought cookies that satisfy strict dietary preferences. But even though Fig Newtons have no animal products listed in the ingredients, they still might not qualify as vegan, strictly-speaking. (This isn't about the wasps.)

For those following a strict vegan diet, the problem may arise with the sourcing of some of the ingredients. CaringConsumer.com cited refined sugar as possibly being processed with animal bone char (also called natural carbon) for its white color, noting that if it's not labeled as organic, unrefined, or raw, it might not be safe for vegans. The site also reported that the natural and artificial flavorings involved in the recipe are also undetermined, meaning they could have been made using animal products.

PlantBasedParty.com then noted the use of glycerin as part of the ingredients in fat-free Newtons. While vegetable glycerin is made using plants, the one in fat-free Newtons is simply labeled as glycerin, leaving it up in the air as to whether it was synthetically produced or made from animals.

This one's a technicality, but it's still a reality. If you're out there believing that Newtons have their own national day, your figgies are surely mistaken. While Fig Newtons (whoever they are) enjoy their own national day on January 16th every year, Newtons have been rudely left out of their own party.

But however you celebrate National Fig Newton Day, the only rule is this: Embrace the fig. Whether that means you indulge in the OG cookie, strike out on your own with a homemade version, or go rogue and bake a fig and chocolate cookie beloved by Jacques Torres and Dorie Greenspan, the day is yours.

If you're looking for a little inspiration, a YouTuber once ate 220 Newtons to max out at 11,000 cookie calories in under 38 minutes. There was also Massachusetts local Martin Tighe who ate 56 Fig Newtons while running 85.83 miles in 12 hours to earn a Guinness World Record for distance on a treadmill. Alternatively, take a whimsical cue from 34th Street Magazine writer Julia Bell who served Newtons with plating deserving of a Michelin star. (Fig) Newtons may be your canvas, but you are the artist. Treat yourself.