Fruit or vegetable?

[Judy Larson]

Hello,

I'm not sure this is the right news group for my question, but I'll give
it a try. My family and I have been having a discussion as to what
parameters are used to categorize fruits and vegetables. Do all fruits
come from blossoms? What about beans and peas? Are nuts considered
fruits? Are legumes vegetables or are they in their own category?

Thank you,
Judy Larson
ci...@halcyon.com

[Veronica]

I think it's important to see this in the appropriate context. The word "fruit" has at least two contexts (there are others, but two that are relevant here): a technical botanical context and a culinary context; "vegetable" is strictly a culinary term with no botanical meaning. So, if we are discussing technical, botanical terminology, green beans, for example, are (immature) fruits; okra, tomato, eggplant, corn (maize) kernels, and numerous other, generally seed-containing, plant structures are fruits. Obviously, this runs counter to the more common, culinary distinctions where each of these would clearly be considered as vegetables. In general, _to a botanist or plant biologist_, fruits are the seed-containing structures of plants. I say in general because some fruits are seedless: banana, navel orange, pineapple, a few others. All flowering plants make a fruit of some kind by this technical definition of a fruit. For example, the winged seeds of maples, acorns of oaks, the wind-blown seeds of dandelions, grass seeds, are all fruits. Nuts are a slightly different case. Mainly, the parts of nuts that we eat -- almond, walnut, hazelnut, pistachio kernels -- are seeds; in most cases, the fruits (in the technical sense) include the shells and husk or hulls that enclose them, but are removed by growers and processors. Cashew is an interesting case: the nut is the seed, of course, but the fruit (cashew apple) comprises a sweet, succulent part that is eaten in the tropics were cashews are grown. So, I have to disagree with Scott at least with regard to his "botanical" definition of vegetable. AFAIK, while botanists do define fruit quite precisely, there is no "botanical" definition of a vegetable. In fact, the word vegetable is not listed in the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Botany, my desktop reference on the subject. The term belongs in the culinary realm, where it includes many items of produce that a botanist will consider as fruit. For what it's worth, it's sometimes interesting to consider exactly what plant parts comprise our vegetables: broccoli and cauliflower are young flower clusters that haven't opened yet, asparagus is a young stem that hasn't expanded yet, artichokes are flower buds of a thisle-like plant, potatoes aren't roots at all but tubers or underground stems. srus...@ou.edu (Scott D. Russell) wrote: >In article <cigam-20019...@evt-mx100-ip129.halcyon.com>, ci...@halcyon.com (Judy Larson) wrote: >>I'm not sure this is the right news group for my question, but I'll give >>it a try. My family and I have been having a discussion as to what >>parameters are used to categorize fruits and vegetables. Do all fruits >>come from blossoms? What about beans and peas? Are nuts considered >>fruits? Are legumes vegetables or are they in their own category? >According to the botanical definitions of fruit and vegetable, if the organ is >a vegetative part (root, stem or leaf), it is a vegetable. If it is derived >from an ovary (female reproductive structure of the flower), then it is a >fruit. >Beans are therefore clearly fruits by this definition, since they include the >ovary wall. Peas are derived from the fruit and would be called seeds. Under >this kind of categorization, nuts are fruits, and legumes need no special >treatment. >Notice, color has nothing to do with the category, nor do any taste >attributes, unlike the "grocery store definitions" of fruit and vegetable! >========================================================================= >Scott D. Russell Internet: srus...@ou.edu >Dept of Botany & Microbiology ->http://www.ou.edu/cas/botany-micro/ > & Noble Electron Microscopy Lab ->http://www.ou.edu/research/electron/ >University of Oklahoma, Norman OK Phone: 1-405-325-6234 > 73019-0245 USA FAX: 1-405-325-7619 >========================================================================= >

[Scott D. Russell]

[Sathish, P.]

I agree with Veronica. But, I caught something in her text, that I
think might not be true. A pineapple is not a fruit, as it is obtained
from an inflorescence - sort of many fruits fused to form a single
structure. Or am I wrong? Again, the cashew-nut can be considered as a
fruit as well and not just as seed. The cashew fruit is the swollen
pedicel, I believe.

sathish
--
P. Sathish Ph. D.
Post-Doctoral Researcher,
Department of Biochemistry,
Arrhenius Laboratories for Natural Sciences,
Stockholm University,
S 106 91 Stockholm,
Sweden.

Phone: +46 8 16 2464
Fax: +46 8 15 3679
E-mail: sat...@biokemi.su.se
WWW: http://130.237.179.59/sathish/sathish.html

[Thomas Bjorkman]

In article <32e4f1b1....@news.ucdavis.edu>, v...@post1.com (Veronica)
wrote:

> I think it's important to see this in the appropriate context. The
> word "fruit" has at least two contexts (there are others, but two that
> are relevant here): a technical botanical context and a culinary
> context; "vegetable" is strictly a culinary term with no botanical
> meaning.

This is the essential point. There is also a third context: commodity
group. For statistical reporting, some things are sorted in unexpected
ways. Because they are grown as annuals, strawberries are grouped with
vegetables in the agricultural statistics. It makes sense for the ag
economists, even though it is not sensible in the other contexts.

There is also a third category: grain. Sweet corn is a vegetable
(commoditywise) but field corn is a grain. Soybean is a grain unless it
is sold green (edible soybean) which is a vegetable. Dry beans are on the
line between grains and vegetables, whereas green beans in the same
species are certainly vegetables [perhaps because you eat the whole fruit
{bean pod} and not just the seed:-)?]
--
Thomas Björkman
Dept. of Horticultural Sciences
Cornell University

[efi kazantzidou]

In article <tnb1-22019...@132.236.10.69>, Thomas Bjorkman
<tn...@cornell.edu> writes

Hi There,

Well this looks like a somewhere needing a laugh - according to the EU, a
CARROT is a FRUIT, that is because it is used in some German and Polish
traditional jams, which by regulation may only contain fruit! Easier to change
the laws of nature than the jam !

Trevor Fenning.