Are tomatoes vegetables or fruits?

Answer 1

In 1893 , the Supreme Court ruled that the tomato must be considered a vegetable, even though, botanically, it is a fruit. Because vegetables and fruits were subject to different import duties, it was necessary to define it as one or the other. So, tomatoes were declared to be a vegetable given that it was commonly eaten as one.

Answer 2

Fruit

Answer 3

Fruit

Answer 4

Fruit

Answer 5

Fruits

Answer 6

Fruits.

Answer 7

Fruits.

Answer 8

In botany, a fruit is the ripened ovary—together with seeds—of a flowering plant. In many species, the fruit incorporates the ripened ovary and surrounding tissues. Fruits are the means by which flowering plants disseminate seeds. Evolution has led plants to adopt certain basic mechanisms, seemingly without close regard to the tissues involved. No one terminology really fits the enormous variety that is found among plant fruits. Botanical terminology for fruits is inexact and will remain so. In cuisine, when discussing fruit as food, the term usually refers to just those plant fruits that are sweet and fleshy, examples of which include plum, apple and orange. However, a great many common vegetables, as well as nuts and grains, are the fruit of the plant species they come from.

Many foods are botanically fruit, but are treated as vegetables in cooking. These include cucurbits (e.g., squash and pumpkin), tomato, cucumber, aubergine (eggplant), and sweet pepper, along with nuts, and some spices, such as allspice, nutmeg and chiles.

Vegetable is a culinary term. Its definition has no scientific value, and is somewhat arbitrary and subjective. Any part of an herbaceous plant that humans eat whole or in part is a vegetable, except for culinary fruits and arguably grains, nuts, herbs, and spices. Also, mushrooms are commonly considered vegetables, despite belonging to a different biological kingdom, namely fungi (which used to be classified as plants).

Vegetables include leaf vegetables (for example lettuce), stem vegetables (asparagus), root vegetables (carrot), flower vegetables (broccoli), bulbs (garlic) and botanical fruits such as cucumbers, squashes, pumpkins, avocados, capsicums, as well as botanical pulses such as green beans, and fleshy, immature seeds such as those of peas or beans.

Since "vegetable" is not a botanical term, there is no contradiction in a plant part being a fruit botanically while still being considered a vegetable.

In general, vegetables are thought of as being savoury, and not sweet (with some exceptions, such as rhubarb and pumpkin).

Now to your question, "Are tomatoes vegetables or fruits"?

Botanically speaking, a tomato is the ovary, together with its seeds, of a flowering plant, i.e. a fruit. However, from a culinary perspective the tomato is typically served as a meal, or part of a main course of a meal, meaning that it would be considered a vegetable (a culinary term which has no botanical meaning).

This argument has led to actual legal implications in the United States. In 1887, U.S. tariff laws which imposed a duty on vegetables but not on fruits caused the tomato's status to become a matter of legal importance. The U.S. Supreme Court settled this controversy in 1893, declaring that the tomato is a vegetable, using the popular definition which classifies vegetable by use, that they are generally served with dinner and not dessert. The case is known as Nix v. Hedden.

It should be noted that strictly speaking the holding of the case applies only to the interpretation of the Tariff Act of March 3, 1883 and not much else. The court does not purport to reclassify tomato for botanical or for any other purpose other than paying a tax under a tariff act.

In concordance with this classification, the tomato has been proposed as the state fruit of New Jersey. Arkansas takes both sides by declaring the "South Arkansas Vine Ripe Pink Tomato" to be both the state fruit and the state vegetable in the same law, citing both its botanical and culinary classifications.

Answer 9

Vegetables do have seeds -- eggplant, green beans, okra?

I think tomatoes are vegetables. You eat them raw/cooked along with other vegetables. V8 vegetable juice is made of tomato juice. You never find tomatoes in a fruit bowl or fruit punch.

Answer 10

Well, technically it's a fruit because it is the reproductive product of a plant. When we eat the reproductive parts of a plant that is a fruit or a nut. When we eat the actual plant, that is a vegetable. But we classify some of these fruits as veggies because of how they taste or how we use them. Other veggies that are actually fruits of a plant are cucumbers, zucchini, eggplant, etc.