What is the criteria for deciding if something is a fruit, vegetable, nut of seed?

Question

Is a peanut a nut, why do people say a tomato is a fruit etc.

Answer 1

OK - Geeze - confused? I was from the above! lol!

Firstly you need to distinguish between the social/cooking kinda definitions or the actual scientific ones.

As you know, when talking about cooking we generally talk about vegetables as any part of a plant that we eat that is savory, and a fruit as one that is sweet. This kinda language is not very specific and people will alway disagree on some things - just as what some people might call a top others might call a t-shirt or a jumper etc. - it's just the nature of our language.

Thankfully, in their quest to classify everything, scientists make more rigid definitions!

A seed is something that contains an embryo - a baby plant, and usually a food source (some fat or protien) inside a protective shell. It's what's needed to grow a new plant. Not all plants produce seeds, only flowering plants (angiosperms) do - others reproduce in different ways, eg. spores. You eat seeds - they are the pips in heaps of fruit or things like sunflower seeds we put into bread etc..

Plants protect seeds in different ways - some don't at all, but some produce large seeds protected in a thick shell - these are nuts, and others protect them in fleshy tissue - these are fruits. Fruits always contain seeds - I know you do get seedless grapes and bananas - but these are plants that have been specially bread not to contain seeds. Not all people can have children - occasionally people are born sterile. It's the same for plants - some can't produce seeds. We take cuttings to reproduce them and all their fruits are seedless. As a rule though, anything with seeds in the middle is a fruit.

A vegetable is just a part of a plant that we eat - eg. leaves (spinich etc.), stems (celery etc.), or roots (potatoes, carrots etc.) - they don't contain seeds because the plant doesn't use them to protect seeds during reproduction - they are just a part of the actual plant. Nothing can be (scientifically) a fruit and a vegetable at the same time! By the scientific definition a tomato is only a fruit, although in a kitchen it is called a vegetable.

Spices can be fruits or vegetables with a strong flavour. Scientifically a herb is any non-woody plant - so scientifically a banana 'tree' is a herb (it's not got a woody stem).

Hope that's explained it a bit better! x

Answer 2

Everyone always gets this type of question wrong, and most people don't even realize that they are wrong....and they pick the wrong answer as the best one.

A fruit is the seed covering of an angiosperm's, well, seed. Its function is to attract animals to eat it....dispersing the seed away from the mother plant.

A vegetable is any part of a plant that has a herbaceous stem (meaning its stem is green and flexible, and it dies when it freezes) It does not necessarily have to be the leaves or roots to be considered a vegetable. The plant's flowers and fruits are also considered to be vegetables.

A nut is a type of fruit, believe it or not. It isn't like most fruits, because of its hard shell. But it is still a type of fruit.

A tomato is a fruit and a vegetable. As are cucumbers and pumpkins.

Answer 3

A peanut is accually not a nut but a legume because it is formed form 2 cotyledons. A tomato is a fruit becase all fruits produce seeds. You can find tiny yellow seeds within the ovary of a tomato.

Answer 4

Well, first of all, vegetable is NOT a botanical term so we can eliminate that right away. Anyone can call anything a vegetable. Scientifically, it means nothing.

A fruit is a ripened ovary.

A seed is a matured ovule.

A nut is a kind of fruit where the ovary wall is hard and is not fused to the seed coat (pericarp).

Answer 5

Vegetable is a culinary term not a botanical one.

From a culinary perspective, fruits tend to be sweet: vegetables not. Fruits tend to be eaten during breakfast, snacks oe desserts; vegetables not.

Nuts are hard-shelled fruits. Botanically, peanuts are nuts and fruits. Peanut shells are the fruit (ovary wall)

Fruits may have one or more seeds. Peanuts genrally have 2 or 3 seeds. The seed coat is the papery material that surounds each nut.

Answer 6

Tomato is a fruit, because it has seeds on the inside - i was amazed to find out from the programme QI, that a banana tree is a herb, and a banana is strictly speaking a 'berry'!!!

Answer 7

Fruit forms from the ovaries of flowering plants.

Nuts are hard forms of the ovary.

Vegetables i think are everything else. I do not believe that it is a scientific term.

Answer 8

If it has seeds, it is a fruit.

If it is surrounded by fleshy tissue, it is a seed.

If it has a shell, it is a nut.

Peanuts are legumes, like peas.

Don't ask me why, that's just the way it is, lol.