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.

---

| PLANTanswers Home | PLANTanswers Recipe Index |