Are tomatoes vegetables or fruits?

Answer 1

Due to the sugar content in tomatoes, they are technically fruits. But most people consider them vegetables and eat them like they're vegetables.

Answer 2

The confusion about 'fruit' and 'vegetable' arises because of the differences in usage between scientists and cooks. Scientifically speaking, a tomato is definitely a fruit. True fruits are developed from the ovary in the base of the flower, and contain the seeds of the plant (though cultivated forms may be seedless). Blueberries, raspberries, and oranges are true fruits, and so are many kinds of nut. Some plants have a soft part which supports the seeds and is also called a 'fruit', though it is not developed from the ovary: the strawberry is an example. As far as cooking is concerned, some things which are strictly fruits may be called 'vegetables' because they are used in savoury rather than sweet cooking. The tomato, though technically a fruit, is often used as a vegetable, and a bean pod is also technically a fruit. The term 'vegetable' is more generally used of other edible parts of plants, such as cabbage leaves, celery stalks, and potato tubers, which are not strictly the fruit of the plant from which they come. Occasionally the term 'fruit' may be used to refer to a part of a plant which is not a fruit, but which is used in sweet cooking: rhubarb, for example. So a tomato is the fruit of the tomato plant, but can be used as a vegetable in cooking.

Answer 3

Debate has centered over whether the tomato is a vegetable or a fruit.

In 1887, the question went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in Nix v. Hedden. The real issue was money and protection for American growers: if tomatoes were vegetables, they could be taxed when imported under the Tariff Act of 1883. The Court's botanical knowledge was sound—tomatoes are specialized reproductive structures that contain seeds, in other words, fruits—but it chose utility over botanical technicalities and ruled on the side of American farmers:

Botanically speaking tomatoes are the fruit 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 ...are usually served at dinner in, with or after the soup, fish or meats...and not, like fruits generally, as dessert.

John Nix, the New York tomato importer, had to pay. The Court's pragmatism was echoed in 1981, when the director of USDA's Division of Food and Nutrition Service officially declared that ketchup was a vegetable as part of the Reagan Administration's effort to justify cuts in the school-lunch program.

Answer 4

The word tomato name means "wolf-fruit", common name "wolf-apple").

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, you have a FRUIT. This, of course, makes your tomato a FRUIT!!

Answer 5

Fruit

Answer 6

A tomatoe is a fruit

Answer 7

Fruits.

Answer 8

Tomatoes are a fruit.

Answer 9

Tomatoes are now said to be both. But in the 1700s, English monarchs ruled they were veggies because there wasn't a tax on fruits.

Answer 10

Fruits. Tomatoes have seeds.