I have always wondered...is tomato a fruit or vegetable? I keep on getting mixed answers from my friends.?

Question

My friends have said," Oh tomato is a fruit because it has seeds." But cucumbers have seeds. Avacados have seeds. A lot of vegetables have seeds. So tomato....fruit or vegetable?

Answer 1

technically speaking, it's a fruit. but it hink it falls more into a veggie category

Answer 2

Fruit or vegetable?

Tomato fruitBotanically speaking, a tomato is the ovary, together with its seeds, of a flowering plant: 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 vegetables, rather than at dessert. As noted above, 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. 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). 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. However, the Nix v. Hedden ruling is recognized by the USDA [10].

The tomato has been designated the state vegetable 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. In 2006, the Ohio House of Representatives passed a law that would have declared the tomato to be the official state fruit, but the bill died when the Ohio Senate failed to act on it. Tomato juice has been the official beverage of Ohio since 1965. A.W. Livingston, of Reynoldsburg, Ohio played a large part in popularizing the tomato in the late 1800's.

But due to the scientific definition of a fruit and a vegetable, the tomato still remains a fruit when not dealing with US 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

a tomato is the ovary, together with its seeds, of a flowering plant: 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 vegetables, rather than at dessert. The term "vegetable" has no botanical meaning and is purely a culinary term.But due to the scientific definition of a fruit and a vegetable, the tomato still remains a fruit when not dealing with US tariffs

Answer 4

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.

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.

Answer 5

Botanically, tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant, and avocados are all fruits, but:
Q: What determines if something is a fruit or vegetable?
A: A vegetable is described as "any herbaceous (non-woody) plant or plant part that is eaten with the main course rather than as a dessert. It usually has a bland taste."

Botanically the fruit is "the developed ovary of a seed plant with its contents and accessory parts, as the pea pod, nut, tomato, pineapple, etc." or " the edible part of a plant developed from a flower with any accessory tissues, as the peach, mulberry, banana, etc."

The confusion arises because the "vegetable" can have "fruit" which are the reproductive parts. The tomato is probably the only legally declared vegetable in a Supreme Court ruling in the early 1900's.

Answer 6

Botanically speaking, a fruit is anything that has seeds or is itself a seed.

Nuts are fruits.

Cucumbers (and squash, and pumpkins) are fruits.

Avocados are fruits.

Tomatoes are fruits (and so are peppers and eggplants, also in the same family.)

The fruit/vegetable distinction is mainly due to food items being taxed differently by the government based on their category...which is kinda arbitrary. Basically, a tomato is a "vegetable" (not a botanical term, by the way), because it's a non-sweet fruit...I guess.

Vegetables are also stems (celery), leaves (lettuce), flower buds (broccoli), roots (carrots), or tubers (potatoes.)

But then some fruits are "spices", and spices are also tree bark (cinnamon), corms (turmeric), or roots (ginseng.)

Whew!

Very confusing.

But the government often is.

Edit: no, seeds are ALWAYS inside on fruits. A strawberry isn't a berry. It's a swollen stem. The fruits are the little seeds on the outside (fruit type: achene.)

Blackberries/raspberries are little wads of drupelets (a drupe is a stone fruit, like a cherry or peach.)

True berries are things like grapes, cranberries, and blueberries.

Answer 7

A tomato IS a fruit. We just don't think of it as one because it doesn't have as much natural sugar. Here's some further info from Wikipedia:

"Botanically speaking, a tomato is the ovary, together with its seeds, of a flowering plant: 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 vegetables, rather than at dessert. As noted above, the term "vegetable" has no botanical meaning and is purely a culinary term."

Answer 8

Botanically speaking it is a fruit (since it is the fleshy remains of a flower that contains seeds), however culinarily speaking, it is a vegetable. Culinarily speaking, a vegetable is any savory plant part. That's a wide, sweeping definition that includes some botanical fruits. Fruits tend to be used in desserts, salads; they impart sweetness. So spinach is a plant part (a leaf); it is culinarily a vegetable. Apples are botanically fruit. They are sweet and culinarily a fruit as well. Tomatoes are used in savory dishes (not sweet), so you wouldn't have tomato pie (if such a thing existed) for dessert for example. Botanically fruit, but culinarily vegetable.

Answer 9

Botanically speaking, a tomato is the ovary, together with its seeds, of a flowering plant: 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 vegetables, rather than at dessert. As noted above, the term "vegetable" has no botanical meaning and is purely a culinary term. - wikipedia.

Answer 10

Tomatoes are definately in the fruit family.

Fruit. Botanically, a tomato fruit is a berry consisting of seeds within a fleshy pericarp developed from an ovary. Fruits of L. esculentum have two to several carpels. There is extreme variability of fruit characters such as size, shape, exterior color of mature and immature fruit, and interior flesh color.

Answer 11

A tomato is a fruit, but the United States had it officially declared a vegetable several years back.