Are tomatoes fruits or vegetables?

Answer 1

fruit...

Is The Tomato a Fruit or a Vegetable?

The United States Congress passed the Tariff Act of 1883, a rather innocuous piece of legislation requiring a 10% tax on imported vegetables, in response to growing international trade. Just a few short years later, a tomato importer evaluated the law closely, and decided to challenge it on the botanical grounds that a tomato was in fact technically a fruit, not a vegetable, and should therefore be exempt from said tax. John Nix's case posed merit enough to land the case before the Supreme Court in 1893. In Nix vx Hedden, 149 U.S. 304 (1893), Justice Gray wrote, "Botanically speaking, tomatoes are fruits of a vine, just as are cucumbers, squashes, beans, and peas. But in the common language of the people... all these are vegetables, which are grown in kitchen gardens, and which, whether eaten cooked or raw, are, like potatoes, carrots, parsnips, turnips, beets, cauliflower, cabbage, celery and lettuce, usually served at dinner in, with or after the soup, fish or meats which constitute the principal part of the repast, and not, like fruits generally, as dessert". The court rejected the botanical truth that the tomato is in fact a monstrously sized berry, and deferred to the culinary vernacular of vegetable to describe it.




Information courtesy of
Sam Cox

Answer 2

Botanically speaking, the tomato you eat is a fruit. So is a watermelon, green pepper, eggplant, cucumber, and squash. A "fruit" is any fleshy material covering a seed or seeds.

Horticulturally speaking, the tomato is a vegetable plant. The plant is an annual and nonwoody. Most fruits, from a horticulture perspective, are grown on a woody plant (apples, cherries, raspberries, oranges) with the exception of strawberries.

In 1893, the United States Supreme Court ruled the tomato was a "vegetable" and therefore subject to import taxes. The suit was brought by a consortium of growers who wanted it declared a vegetable to protect U.S. crop development and prices. Fruits, at that time, were not subjected to import taxes and foreign countries could flood the market with lower priced produce. (A hundred years really hasn't changed anything.)

Answer 3

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.

Answer 4

For years the tomato was considered to be a vegetable but it really is a fruit.
A beautiful fruit that tastes as good as it looks. This fruit is really one of the best fruits for a lot of ailments too. Check it out for yourself to see what's so special about tomatoes then enjoy all the tomatoes you can for your healths sake.

Answer 5

Tomatoes are fruits but I think they should B vegetables cause all the fruits that I know of R sweet.

Answer 6

The tamato is a fruit. Why? Well because botanically speaking, a tomato is the ovary, together with its seeds, of a flowering plant. That makes it a fruit.

The reason so many people think of it as a vegitable is because its usually served as part of a main course of a meal, and most people don't consider fruit in that catagory.

Answer 7

Vegetables.

Answer 8

technically, anything is a fruit that comes on a plant or tree from flowers or blooms, as the tomato does, or from a seed pod, like peas and beans. A vegetable comes from the root of the plant like potatoes, carrots, and radishes. Actually peas and beans are legumes.

Answer 9

Tomatoes are a fruit. They contains seeds. Cucumbers are also a fruit because of the seeds.

Answer 10

Fruit also known to some as the Love Apple !