Is a tomato a fruit or vegetable?

Answer 1

U.S. Supreme Court ruled it is a vegetable for tax purposes but botanically it is a fruit. Oddly enough many nuts are actually fruits but we call them nuts because we're........nuts. :)

Answer 2

Answer
legally a tomato is a vegetable. This was decided by the Supreme Court in 1893 and is still adhered to by the government and the American Horticultural Society. Technically, however, a tomato does not meet the scientific requirements of a vegetable. By definition, it is definitely a fruit.

A fruit is defined by a specific growth characteristic, namely, whether or not the produce contains seeds. Since a tomato does contain seeds, it is technically a fruit. The same holds true for most vining plants including squash and beans. Most horticulturalists hold this to be the truth. Therefore, in the gardening world, a tomato is a fruit, despite what the government proclaims.

A vegetable on the other hand does not contain seeds. Instead, it produces a stalk once the plant is spent that will in turn produce seeds. A good example is lettuce. Once the plant is spent, it bolts by sending up a center stalk that eventually produces seed pods. Inside each pod are hundreds or even thousands of seeds. Since the seeds are not present inside the edible produce, it is considered a vegetable and not a fruit.

I hope this answered your question.

Answer 3

Is a tomato a fruit or a vegetable?


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 4

Fruit

Answer 5

Fruit

Answer 6

Fruit

Answer 7

Fruit

Answer 8

A Tomato is both a fruit and also a vegetable.

Answer 9

Technically it is a fruit. A good rule of thumb to use to check if any "vegetable" is a fruit is to know if it came from a flower or not. Anything that forms from a pollenated flower is a fruit. Anything that grows from other plant parts is a vegetable. For example, apples, cherries, oranges, lemons, plums, bananas, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and squash are all fruits. Potatoes, celery, lettuce, beets, radishes, collards, carrots and turnips are all vegetables. Becareful though, my daughter's school teacher marked her test wrong because she said "most people consider tomatoes a vegetable". I asked her how many botany classes she took and she said "none". Go figure.

Answer 10

Technically a tomato is a fruit. Fruits grow from flowers and contain a seed (peach) or seeds. Biologically they are a way for a plant to spread it's seed by (usually) being juicy and edible, or by wind dispersal (sycamore keys) anything with seeds is a fruit, but not all fruits are edible. Nuts are seeds, so can be termed as fruits, but vegetables can be fruits, roots, leaves, tubers etc.

Answer 11

Fruit.