why is a tomato a fruit and don't say because it has seeds as so have pumpkins and peppers?

Question

people keep saying because of seeds but that gets stuffed by the banana and pinapples please help out, also seedless grapes?

Answer 1

A ripened ovary together with seeds of a flowering plants... is called FRUIT...

Note: Pepper and pumpkin is a fruit too...

Answer 2

Every edible plant is a vegetable. Vegetables that are also the edible ripened ovary of the plant are fruits. Therefore, all fruits are vegetables, and the either/or question is a false dichotomy.

"Seedless" fruits have pale vestigial little seeds in them (look close at those seedless grapes next time). We have selectively bred them until the seeds have virtually disappeared, as the seeds are not required for the plant to reproduce when we are assisting.

Finally - to answer the primary question - a tomato is the ripened ovary of the tomato plant so it is a fruit. It is the edible part of the plant, and it is therefore a vegetable.

Answer 3

The ripened seed-bearing part of a plant when fleshy and edible.
In other words, a "fruit" is any fleshy material covering a seed or seeds. Most fruits, from a horticultural (science of cultivating) perspective, are grown on a woody plant, with the exception of strawberries.
Or you can say, generally a fruit is the edible part of the plant that contains the seeds. So your eggplant, tomato, cucumber and zucchini are fruits.

To the best of my knowledge and research definition of vegetable is:

A herbaceous (green and leaf like in appearance or texture) plant cultivated for an edible part, as roots, stems, leaves or flowers. Or you may say a vegetable is the edible stems, leaves, and roots of the plant.
Some people think rhubarb is a fruit, because it is used to make pies. But, rhubarb is a vegetable.

Answer 4

Pumpkins and peppers are also fruits. Bananas and pineapples do have seeds, they are just bred to present the smallest possible seeds (that's what the black dots are in the center of a banana). Seedless grapes are bred in the same fashion.

Answer 5

Well now.... pumpkins and peppers are, by definition, fruits:

a product of plant growth (as grain, vegetables, or cotton) b (1) : the usually edible reproductive body of a seed plant; especially : one having a sweet pulp associated with the seed (2) : a succulent plant part (as the petioles of a rhubarb plant) used chiefly in a dessert or sweet course.

Here's vegetable: of, relating to, constituting, or growing like plants b : consisting of plants.

So what we've got here is, failure to communicate. All fruits are vegetables but not all vegetables qualify as a fruit even though fruit comes from a vegetable.

'nuff said?

Answer 6

Botanically speaking, a tomato is the ovary, together with its seeds, of a flowering plant, i.e. a fruit or, more precisely, a berry.

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 (and is) considered a vegetable.

I have always considered it a vegetable

Answer 7

To really figure out if a tomato is a fruit or vegetable, you need to know what makes a fruit a fruit, and a vegetable a vegetable. The big question to ask is, DOES IT HAVE SEEDS?

If the answer is yes, then technically, you have a FRUIT. This, of course, makes your tomato a fruit. It also makes cucumbers, squash, green beans and walnuts all fruits as well. VEGETABLES such as, radishes, celery, carrots, and lettuce do NOT have seeds (that are part of what we eat) and so they are grouped as vegetables.

Answer 8

A lot of quotes above I see, and some contrary ones too. I wonder how the 'experts' would classify the fruit of the oak (the acorn), the fruit of the potato (found on the haulm after flowering), the humble marrow ( a seed-bearing cucurbita), or the runner bean (edible flesh and seed-bearing)? Just a thought.

Answer 9

"Botanically speaking, a tomato is the ovary, together with its seeds, of a flowering plant, i.e. a fruit or, more precisely, a berry. 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 (and is) considered a vegetable."

Answer 10

Everything you mentioned has seeds, and is a fruit. Bearing seeds is one of the defining characteristics of fruit.

As to seedless grapes, they are a sterile hybrid, and are propagated by cuttings.