• cally [he/they]@pawb.social
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    2 years ago

    tomatoes are fruits that are often used as vegetables and are botanically classified as berries*

    *according to wikipedia and my interpretation of it

    • themusicman@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      According to some YouTube short (maybe it was vsauce?): botanically, fruits are vegetables so tomatoes are vegetables in both classification systems

      • 𝘋𝘪𝘳𝘬@lemmy.ml
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        2 years ago

        In reality it really does not matter and the classification is somewhat arbitrary. Just think about adding it to a fruit salad. Would you do it? Then it’s a fruit.

    • frezik@midwest.social
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      2 years ago

      I once saw a little blurb at a sandwich shop stating that tomatoes are fruit, but if you pair them on a sandwich with jalapenos, you’re getting both fruits and vegetables. I demand better scientific accuracy in restaurant marketing signs.

        • barsoap@lemm.ee
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          2 years ago

          Very much so. Bell peppers and jalapenos are fruits from different strains of capsicum annuum. Biologists apparently don’t agree on whether all chilli/paprika stuff is capsicum annuum, what’s for sure is that they’re all very closely related.

    • Skwerls@discuss.tchncs.de
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      2 years ago

      Vegetable has no meaning other than “part of a plant* we eat”, so basically all fruits are vegetables

      *And in the case of mushrooms, fungi

      • ShakeThatYam@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        To add to this, vegetable is a culinary term and not a scientific term. Whereas, fruit can be both. Tomatoes are scientifically a fruit, but generally not from a culinary perspective.

        • barsoap@lemm.ee
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          2 years ago

          This is precisely it: Tomatoes can be sweet enough to be a fruit, they can be acidic enough to be a fruit, but they’re definitely too umami to be fruit.

          Next thing people are going to insist on, wilfully ignoring the differences in taxonomy, is that peppercorns are fruit. A stone fruit, just like cherries or peaches.