LOS ANGELES (KNX) - It’s time to settle an age-old debate: are tomatoes a fruit or a vegetable? Or both? Or neither?
What is a vegetable, anyway? Do they even exist?
On “I’ve Got Questions” with Mike Simpson, plant biologist and science communicator Dr. Molly Edwards said that, as far as botanists are concerned, vegetables are not real.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg — it turns out, everything we know about the produce aisle is a lie.
According to Dr. Edwards, “vegetable” is a “useful culinary term” for a savory plant, in contrast to sweet plants, which we call fruits. But the word has no precise scientific meaning.
“When we say vegetable, we can really be referring to one of any number of parts of the plant,” she said.
For example, carrots are roots, cabbages are leaves, and potatoes are underground stems called tubers. And some so-called “vegetables,” like tomatoes, are actually fruits — berries, to be specific.
Unlike the botanically meaningless term “vegetable,” the word “fruit” actually refers to a specific part of the plant: the ovary, which contains seeds. A berry is any fruit that comes from a single ovary with soft, fleshy tissue, including tomatoes, cucumbers, and eggplants — but not strawberries.
That’s right, strawberries aren’t berries. The sweet red part of the plant is actually the receptacle, the base of the flower. And those little white dots we call the “seeds?” Those are actually the fruit.
But what about citruses, like lemons and oranges? As a small consolation, they are actually fruits. They’re berries. And according to Dr. Edwards, the juicy inner part we eat is — believe it or not — hair.
“When you bite into an orange slice, you’re biting into plant ovary hair,” she said.
For those answers, listen to the full episode of “I’ve Got Questions” in the audio above, and subscribe on Audacy, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, and Spotify.
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