Tomatoes are the most well-known food that may be fruit and a vegetable. Your elementary school teacher or smart buddy may have told you that tomatoes are fruits, but the truth is more nuanced. To be sure, tomatoes fit the bill for both fruits and vegetables. The reason can be found in the several senses in which the word “fruit” can be used. To begin, yes, tomatoes are fruits according to the scientific definition.
Fruit is “the generally edible reproductive body of a seed plant,” as defined by Merriam-Webster. Moreover, per the dictionary, “Anything that develops on a plant and is the way by which that plant gets its seeds out into the world is a fruit.”
In this sense, apples, tomatoes, and any other fruits and vegetables with seeds are included. According to research, chili peppers, cucumbers, pumpkins, and avocados are also fruits.
Compared to fruits and meat, the definition of vegetables is more nebulous. We use this term to classify various plants where the roots, stems, and leaves are consumed for their nutritional value. Fruits are only one method by which certain plants disperse their seeds, while vegetables can be either part of plants or the entire plant itself, as defined by the dictionary.
The thing a tomato plant produces isn’t a part of the plant itself, just as the egg a chicken lays isn’t a part of the chicken, and the apple isn’t a part of the tree it grew on, as defined by Merriam-Webster.
The word “vegetable” is often misused because it is not a botanical term but a culinary one. In the kitchen, “fruit” can refer to something that is “used principally in a dessert or sweet course” and “has a sweet pulp linked with the seed.” According to the scientific definition, fruits don’t need to be sweet, but savory fruits like tomatoes are typically considered vegetables in the kitchen.
Tomatoes, like cucumbers, squashes, beans, and peas, are botanically the product of a vine, as Grey argued in the court’s ruling. But in people’s everyday parlance, “all these are vegetables which are grown in kitchen gardens.
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