Simple but confusing question: Is the tomato a fruit or a vegatable?

Question

When I was very little I knew I thought it's a vegatable but now I'm convinced by many people that is a fruit, but recently i recieveid the information that is a vegetable. OK can you please tell me what is the tomato truly. I'm so confused! Give me please all the reasons, detalies or / explinations that the tomato is a fruit / a vegetable.

Ha I knew it, it's a fruit. Jeez I don't know what to do now, so many very very very good answers. Thanks all, now i can convince somebody who claimed that the tomato is a vegetable.

guys please vote the best answer, cause in my point of view all are the best and I don't know which should i choose.

Answer 1

The tomato can be classified as a fruit (berry specifically) or a vegetable.

This link will explain why:
http://kdcomm.net/~tomato/debate.htm

Answer 2

Botanically a fruit, the tomato is nutritionally categorized as a vegetable . 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.
Scientifically, a tomato is the ovary, together with its seeds, of a flowering plant, that is a fruit or, more precisely, a berry. However, from a culinary perspective, the tomato is not as sweet as those foodstuffs usually called fruits; and it is typically served as part of a main course of a meal, as are other vegetables, rather than at dessert. The term "vegetable" has no botanical meaning and is purely a culinary term.

This argument has led to actual legal implications in the United States, Australia and China. In 1887, U.S. tariff laws that 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 (149 U.S. 304). While the Tomato can be classified as a fruit, it is officially categorized as a definite vegetable in the United States.

The USDA also considers the tomato a vegetable.

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.

But due to the scientific definition of a fruit and a vegetable, the tomato still remains a fruit when not dealing with tariffs. Nor is it the only culinary vegetable that is a botanical fruit: eggplants, cucumbers, and squashes of all kinds (including zucchini and pumpkins) share the same ambiguity.

Answer 3

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.

Now don't go looking for tomatoes next to the oranges in your grocery stores. Certain fruits like tomatoes and green beans will probably always be mostly referred to as "vegetables" in today's society.

NOW YOU KNOW!

Answer 4

Cucumbers are fruit as well.
From a biologist viewpoint, the fruit is the mature ovary, that houses the seeds of a plant.
Fruits help the seeds to be transported away from the parent plant. In many species, this is done by creating something edible that animals will take and eat and deposit the seeds away from the parent plant. Fructose (the sugar that makes the layman's "fruit" sweet) is a good incentive for doing this.

The term vegetable is not scientific.

Vegetables can be
fruits: tomatoes, pea pods, cucumbers, squash, pumpkin
seeds: beans, peas
stems: celery, potatoes
leaves: spinach, lettuce, collards
roots: carrots, beets
flowers: broccoli, asparagus heads, cauliFLOWER

Answer 5

Fruit or Vegetable

Botanically speaking, a tomato is the ovary, together with its seeds, of a flowering plant, that is a fruit or, more precisely, a berry. However, from a culinary perspective, the tomato is not as sweet as those foodstuffs usually called fruits; and it is typically served as part of a main course of a meal, as are other vegetables, rather than at dessert. As noted above, the term "vegetable" has no botanical meaning and is purely a culinary term.

The USDA considers the tomato a vegetable.

Answer 6

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.

Now don't go looking for tomatoes next to the oranges in your grocery stores. Certain fruits like tomatoes and green beans will probably always be mostly referred to as "vegetables" in today's society.

Answer 7

The scientific definition of a fruit is any structure that develops from a fertilized ovary and contains seeds of the plant. All fruits come from the ovaries of a flower. Therefore, many things that we consider to be “vegetables” are actually fruits . For example tomatoes, cucumbers, beans (green beans as well as all other beans), peas, peppers, corn, eggplant and squash are all fruits.

So, basically a fruit is the mature ovary of a plant, such as an apple, melon, cucumber, or tomato. From the common, every day "grocery store perspective," we tend to use the word fruit with respect to fruits eaten fresh as desserts - apples, peaches, cherries, etc. - and not to items cooked or used in salads. So, tomatoes tend to be lumped in with vegetables because of the way they are used (cooked and in salads), but botanists will call them fruits because they develop from the reproductive structures of plants. The California legislature once passed a law declaring tomatoes a vegetable in order to impose a tariff on Mexican imports.

Answer 8

A tomato is a fruit because it has seeds. The fruit is the ovary of the plant and protects the seeds. So by botanical definition it is a fruit. A vegetable is a culinary term for something served with the main course . It is not sweet. Fruits served before or after the main course are generally sweet. Consider the parts of the plants that you eat: leaves, stems, roots, fruit, seeds, flowers, storage roots, and etc, So by definition, cucumbers, squash (all types) egg plant, peppers and tomatoes are all fruits.

Answer 9

"Vegetable" is a culinary term or used to figure out taxes on a food item. "Fruit" is a botanical term. Tomatoes are fruit--they have seeds inside them. Technically, they're berries. A "vegetable" is a stem (celery), a leaf (spinach), a root (sweet potato), a tuber (regular potato), or an inflorescence (broccoli--eat the flowers while they're still buds.) Or a fruit.

The fruit/vegetable delineation is stupid and should be abolished. Oh, the arguments I've had with people who say tomatoes aren't fruits! But that's what I get for working with stupid people. At least you aren't belligerent about it. Good for you! Tomatoes are fruits. Except when they're vegetables.

Answer 10

A tomato is a fruit. It comes from the flower of the tomato plant and is the holder of the seeds. Just so you know squash, cucumbers, nuts, beans, and peppers are fruits as well. They all have seeds within them. I think we call all these things vegetables just to categorize them, because they seem so different from apples, oranges, pears, etc. But the bottom line is they are all fruits of a plant.

Answer 11

The tomato (Solanum lycopersicum, formerly Lycopersicon lycopersicum) is a plant in the Solanaceae or nightshade family, native to Central, South, and southern North America from Mexico to Peru. It is a short-lived perennial plant, grown as an annual plant, typically growing to 1–3 m in height, with a weak, woody stem that usually scrambles over other plants. The genus Solanum also contains the eggplant and the potato, as well as many poisonous species.

The leaves are 10–25 cm long, pinnate, with 5–9 leaflets, each leaflet up to 8 cm long, with a serrated margin; both the stem and leaves are densely glandular-hairy. The flowers are 1–2 cm across, yellow, with five pointed lobes on the corolla; they are borne in a cyme of 3–12 together. The fruit is an edible, brightly colored (usually red, from the pigment lycopene) berry, 1–2 cm diameter in wild plants, commonly much larger in cultivated forms.

The word tomato derives from a word in the Nahuatl language, tomatl. The specific name, lycopersicum, means "wolf-peach" (compare the related species S. lycocarpum, whose scientific name means "wolf-fruit", common name "wolf-apple").