Mind blown …

Common "Vegetables" That Are Actually Fruits

• Tomatoes: Develop from a flower ovary and house seeds inside, though famously classified as vegetables legally and culinarily.
• Cucumbers: A type of fleshy berry (pepo) with a hard outer rind.
• Peppers: Both sweet bell peppers and spicy chili peppers grow from flowers and contain internal seeds.
• Squash and Zucchini: Fleshy, seed-bearing vine fruits.
• Eggplants: Botanically classified as large berries.
• Avocados: Large single-seeded berries.
• Okra: The seed-packed pods of the okra plant.
• Green Beans and Peas: The seed-enclosing pods of the plant.
• Olives: The stone-fruit (drupe) harvest of the olive tree.
• Pumpkins: Large winter squash varieties that develop from flowers

Top | New | Old

Mindfulness

Do nuts next. 🙂

Thatsright · 61-69, M

@Mindfulness No, nuts are not vegetables.

Botanical Classifications

• True Nuts: Botanically, true nuts (such as hazelnuts, chestnuts, and acorns) are classified as dry, single-seeded fruits with a hard shell that does not open on its own.
• Tree Nuts and Seeds: Many popular "nuts" like almonds, cashews, and walnuts are technically the seeds or drupes (fleshy fruits with a hard shell inside) of flowering plants rather than vegetables.
• Peanuts (The Exception): Peanuts are legumes (belonging to the bean, pea, and lentil family) because they grow underground in pods. While legumes are sometimes grouped closely with vegetables in culinary contexts, they are a distinct botanical category.

Culinary vs. Botanical

• In the kitchen, people treat nuts as a distinct group of high-protein, high-fat foods or snack items.
• Vegetables generally refer to other edible plant structures like roots (carrots), stems (celery), or leaves (spinach), none of which describe nuts.

Thanks. My head hurts now. Everything was a lie.

Add a comment...