How do I explain to someone that a strawberry is a vegtable. Its a vegtable if the seeds are on the outside.?

Question

??????????

Answer 1

You're right. I was a botany major. But they probably won't believe you. Yes, the strawberry part is vegetable material from the mother plant. The "seeds" on the outside are actually fruits with a seed in them. The way I always explain it is that fruits always come from flowers. In the case of a strawberry, the "flower" is actually an inflorescence of many tiny flowers, so the whole thing deceptively looks like a flower. Each of the tiny flowers leaves a fruit behind, which winds up on the strawberry surface, but the material in the strawberry itself is vegetable matter produced by the mother plant. Try it, but they still won't believe you.

Answer 2

Lots of wrong answers so far.

Vegetable is not a scientific term. It is a culinary term, and rather loosely applied. Generally, vegetables are savory, non sweet parts of plants, although mushroom are considered vegetables by some

The strawberry is an accessory fruit; that is, the fleshy part is derived not from the ovaries (which are the "seeds", actually achenes) but from the peg at the bottom of the hypanthium that held the ovaries. So from a technical standpoint, the seeds are the actual fruits of the plant, and the flesh of the strawberry is a vegetable. It is greenish-white as it develops and in most species turns red when ripe.
.

Answer 3

LOL it has been some time since Fortitudinous "was " a botany major - strawberry IS A SINGLE FLOWER, only with many pistils.

the fact that we actualy eat the flesh from the mother plant does not turn it into vegetable, because it is true for many many other fruits as well. And the other way round - the flesh of some vegetables is actually the fruit as well - cucumber is not fruit, at least not to me, and it IS the fruit in botanical sense.

so the reply is, yeah, from botanical sense, the fruits of a strawberry are the tiny pits on its surface. but this fact doesnot make strawbery a vegetable!!! - why should it?

Answer 4

A strawberry is a berry. It is part of the fruit family. Tomatoes are fruits also. Can you name any other "vegetables" that have their seeds on the outside??? Are they ALL fruits??? What about peas? Is that a fruit because the seeds are on the inside?

This comes from the Dept. of Agriculture's web site:
# Strawberries are the only fruit with seeds on the outside.
# The average strawberry has 200 seeds.

NOW who is wrong???

Answer 5

Bingo! A squash is a fruit. It comes from a flower and contains seeds. Corn is a fruit. Peas are a seed inside of a fruit, a pod. Green beans are a fruit. Peas and beans are legumes from the family Leguminosae......
Dieticians consider sweet things fruits and non-sweet things vegetables. That's good for classifying by dietetics. But botanically......
Fruits come from flowers and contain seeds. That simple. The fruits of a strawberry contain seeds, they are the "seeds" on the surface of the strawberry, which is actually vegetable matter from the mother plant. By the way, I am really fortitudinousskeptic more fully explaining this answer to the other morons in here who WERE NOT botany majors in college like me. SO THERE! :)

Answer 6

I am convinced that a strawberry could be a vegetable for the reasons described. But then, isn't a blackberry also a vegetable for the same reason? A blackberry's "stem" (probably not a real stem) is inseparable from the berries. I think that there must be other fruit where the fruit does not easily separate from the other structures.

Although the fleshy part of the blackberry is made of of berries, we still cannot avoid eating the part that attaches it together.

Plants never cease to amaze me, they seem to relish creating confusion to mere humans!

Answer 7

We are finally getting closer to the truth with Jimmy's answer. Strawberries are accessory fruits; one of a class of "false" fruits in which the fleshy part does not derive from the ovary itself (this includes figs and apples, for example -- see link). So strawberry is not a true fruit (not a true or false berry, either) but I can't accept that it is a vegetable. The term 'vegetable' is a practical one relating to edible plant parts but should only be applied to vegetative parts, ie leaves (cabbage, spinach); leaf stalks (rhubarb, celery); roots (carrot, turnip); stems (potato -- yes it is an underground storage stem not a root); flower/inflorescence buds (capers, artichokes) and even immature infloresences (broccoli, cauliflower). Anything developing out of a flower is a fruit ... so I would include strawberries in that broad category.

Answer 8

Can't explain that one. The strawberry is the only fruit that has the seeds on the outside. I'm sorry, but that is the truth. I hope this helps.

Answer 9

Vegetables and fruits are all technically fruits. A strawberry is an aggregate fruit with all the fruits actually being the seeds on the outside. This is the remnants of the receptacle when the fruiting body was formed. Nuts are fruits, cucumbers are fruits, they're all fruits!!!!!

Answer 10

Vegetables grow underground or from vines. Where did you hear that just because the seeds are outside means it's a vegetable?

Sorry, strawberries, as well as any other kind of berry, are fruits.