What's the difference between beans and nuts?

Question

Besides the name, what distingusihes the differences between the two classes?

Answer 1

Since this is rather complex~I will start with simple fruits and vegetables. Here we go:

First, we start with the difference between fruits and vegetables, in particular, considering corn and nuts which are neither of these because they are both seeds, which make them grains. Many people swear that corn is considered a vegetable but vegetables must be root, stem, or leave, and that fruit must be a fleshy covering of seeds. Corn does not fit either of these nor do nuts.

A fruit is the matured ovary of a flower, containing the seed. After fertilization takes place and the embryo (plantlet) has begun to develop, the surrounding ovule becomes the fruit. Yum. I won't go on about the four types of fruit--simple, aggregate, multiple and accessory--which explain things like berries and pineapples.

A vegetable is considered to be edible roots, tubers, stems, leaves, fruits, seeds, flower clusters, and other softer plant parts. In common usage, however, there is no exact distinction between a vegetable and a fruit. The usual example is the tomato, which is a fruit, but is eaten as a vegetable, as are cucumbers, peppers, melons, and squashes. The classification of plants as vegetables is largely determined by custom, culture, and usage.

Okay, now the part which may surprise you. A grain is described as the dry fruit of a cereal grass, such as the "seedlike fruits of the buckwheat and other plants, and the plants bearing such fruits." So, grain is also a fruit.

Which brings us to the nut. Yes, you guessed it, a nut is, in botany, "a dry, one-seeded, usually oily fruit." True nuts include the acorn, chestnut, and hazelnut. The term nut also refers to any seed or fruit with a hard, brittle covering around an edible kernel, like the peanut, which is really a legume. A legume is defined as "(the) name for any plant of the pulse family; more generally, any vegetable. Botanically, a legume--a pod that splits along two sides, with the seeds attached to one of the sutures--is the characteristic fruit of the pulse family." Say what? A "pulse" is "the common name for Leguminosae or Fabaceae, a large family of herbs, shrubs, and trees, also called the pea, or legume. "

Thus, a nut can be a legume (Soybean nuts and peanuts are not really nuts at all. They are legumes, and they come from plants rather than trees. ) and a legume is in the "pulse" family.

Answer 2

the name

Answer 3

Beans are from the plant family Leguminacea. In other words, beans are from the pea and bean family. Plants that usually fix nitrogen and have compound leaves and nice flowers.

Nuts are usually from trees, peanuts being an exception. Nuts contain lots of oil. Beans are more starchy.

Answer 4

A bean is a bean and a nut is a nut

Answer 5

A BEAN is a common name for large plant seeds of several genera of Fabaceae (formerly Leguminosae) used for food or feed.

A SEED is the ripened ovule of gymnosperm or angiosperm plants. The importance of the seed relative to more primitive forms of reproduction and dispersal is attested to by the success of these two groups of plants in dominating the landscape.

Answer 6

Actually most nuts are not legumes, as beans are. The one exception is the peanut.

Answer 7

My immediate thought is hard shells and the oils that are in nuts and not beans.

Answer 8

beans I don't like and nuts I love to put in my mouth

Answer 9

They are both good sources of protein.

Beans are the best source of protein without all the fats and cholesterol that nuts have.

Nuts are good sources of protein but, have a lot of fat and cholesterol in them.

Both are great substitutes for meat.

Answer 10

men have nuts but not beans