Here you go girls
Here is what Science Bob has to say about this question: Is a tomato a fruit or a vegetable?
Answer: “To really figure out if a tomato is a fruit or vegetable, you need to know what makes a fruit a fruit, and a vegetable a vegetable. The big question to ask is, DOES IT HAVE SEEDS?
If the answer is yes, then technically, you have a FRUIT. This, of course, makes your tomato a fruit. It also makes cucumbers, squash, green beans and walnuts all fruits as well. VEGETABLES such as, radishes, celery, carrots, and lettuce do NOT have seeds (that are part of what we eat) and so they are grouped as vegetables.”
By these definitions, a pumpkin is a fruit, botanically speaking. So are squash and zucchini.
Modern society commonly refers to all these fruits as vegetables:
Pumpkin
Squash
Tomato
Cucumbers
Green beans
Capsicum peppers
Bell peppers
The definition of vegetable:
“Vegetable is a culinary term. Its definition has no scientific value and is somewhat arbitrary and subjective. All parts of herbaceous plants eaten as food by humans, whole or in part, are generally considered vegetables. Mushrooms, though belonging to the biological kingdom, fungi, are also commonly considered vegetables…Since ‘vegetable’ is not a botanical term, there is no contradiction in referring to a plant part as a fruit while also being considered a vegetable. Given this general rule of thumb, vegetables can include leaves (lettuce), stems (asparagus), roots (carrots), flowers (broccoli), bulbs (garlic), seeds (peas and beans) and of course the botanical fruits like cucumbers, squash, pumpkins, and capsicums.” (Wikipedia.org)
This is the correct answer for all your food trivia pursuits:
If you are speaking in a botanical, scientific context, then pumpkin, tomato, capsicum, cucumber, tomato and squash are FRUITS because they all have seeds. If you are speaking in culinary terms, they can all be properly called VEGETABLES.
Case solved, right? Not quite. The United States Supreme Court entered into this fascinating debate and gave a legal verdict on whether a tomato should be classified as a vegetable or a fruit. They decided unanimously, in Nix versus Hedden, 1883, that a tomato is a vegetable, even though it is a botanical fruit.
So, there you have the difference between fruit and vegetable and an amazing nutrition fact. A tomato is a fruit AND a vegetable. A pumpkin is a fruit AND a vegetable. The age-old question of "Is it a fruit or vegetable?" has been resolved. Next, we will tackle "Which came first - the chicken or the egg?" (You do know it was the chicken first, right?)
Here is the link:
http://vegetablegardens.suite101.com..._or_vegetable_
