TOMATOES: Fruit or Vegetable?

So, the US Supreme Court decided that tomatoes were in fact a vegetable (because they have nothing better to do, right?), though technically it should be classified as a fruit...

My roommate says it's a vegetable because it's not sweet and all fruit is either sweet or sour but I argue with her saying it's a fruit (though I still think it's a vegetable) because it's got seeds and grows like a berry would.

What do you think?

I would say it's a fruit. To me tomatoes have a sweetness to them, especially cherry tomatoes. Their having seeds and all is also a good reason though some vegetables (say cucumbers) also have seeds in them, so it doesn't necessarily make it a fruit.

The only thing I can say that would make me not classify it as a fruit is the fact that we usually cook it with other vegetables, but that doesn't have anything to do with its nature.

However, I haven't seen the reasons they used to classify it as such and am not an expert in florae, so this is just an opinion.

If your roommate thinks tomatoes aren't sweet they've been eating shitty tomatoes for their entire life.

Scientifically speaking tomatoes are fruit, and so are cucumbers, for that matter.

Additionally, do you have a link to this? Why are the courts wasting their time on something like that, first of all, and second of all who do they think they are to ignore the entire system of classification that botany uses to classify plants?

Originally Posted by Diss

Additionally, do you have a link to this? Why are the courts wasting their time on something like that, first of all, and second of all who do they think they are to ignore the entire system of classification that botany uses to classify plants?

Link.

Biologically, tomatoes are a fruit, but for the most part in cooking, it is used like a vegetable.

Originally Posted by Diss

Scientifically speaking tomatoes are fruit, and so are cucumbers, for that matter.

It so happens that cucumbers are botanically speaking fruits, but that they are reffered to as vegetables when it comes to the culinary arts, as tomatoes sometimes are. As the term vegetable is not a botanical term, there is no problem in calling them both fruit and vegetable.

Cf. this article.

That's a bit like calling whales fish. It's wrong, and it's dumb.

Originally Posted by Diss

That's a bit like calling whales fish. It's wrong, and it's dumb.

I'd say it's more along the lines of calling whales sea-dwelling creatures since all fruits can be classified as vegetables if we use the word vegetable in it's most general sense.

See here.

Edit:

It also makes sense when speaking about the nutritional values of certain foods.

That can't apply here because it's a question of calling them a fruit or a vegetable. If you were using the most general sense of the word vegetable (describing everything in the entire plant kingdom) then its status as a "vegetable" is already confirmed, and it would be both a fruit and. In that case, why even bother to ask the question?

Is a puppy a dog or is it a mammal?

It's vegetable. Why? Because in my mind, anything that isn't a grape and doesn't grow on trees is a vegetable. I don't care what technicalities you throw at me. Can I easily eat it and enjoy the taste all by itself? No? I have to either put it on a sandwich or make it into a paste? Then it's a vegetable.

Quote:

That can't apply here because it's a question of calling them a fruit or a vegetable. If you were using the most general sense of the word (describing everything in the entire plant kingdom) then its status as a "vegetable" is already confirmed. In that case, why even bother to ask the question?

Is a puppy a dog or is it a mammal?

Well then, instead of calling a carrot a vegetable, start calling it a root. And instead of calling an onion a vegetable, start calling it a bulb. And calling brocolli a flower. And so on.

Of course, that complicates things, but that seems to be the way you want it.

Originally Posted by Ayos

It's vegetable. Why? Because in my mind, anything that isn't a grape and doesn't grow on trees is a vegetable. I don't care what technicalities you throw at me. Can I easily eat it and enjoy the taste all by itself? No? I have to either put it on a sandwich or make it into a paste? Then it's a vegetable.

I like lots of so-called vegetables by themselves. =(

Originally Posted by Rychord

Well then, instead of calling a carrot a vegetable, start calling it a root. And instead of calling an onion a vegetable, start calling it a bulb. And calling brocolli a flower. And so on.

Of course, that complicates things, but that seems to be the way you want it.

The way I want it is for the US supreme court to stop, for whatever reason, arbitrarily deciding what are fruits and what are vegetables. I didn't bother to read since all Divest linked was a stupid wiki entry, but I can't imagine what reason they would have for even making such a ridiculous ruling.

It had something to do with taxing it as a fruit or a vegetable, or something.

@ Diss: here's the specific part of it that refers to this:

Quote:

This argument has had 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 the controversy in 1893 by declaring that the tomato is a vegetable, based on the popular definition that classifies vegetables by use, that they are generally served with dinner and not dessert (Nix v. Hedden (149 U.S. 304)). The holding of the case applies only to the interpretation of the Tariff Act of March 3, 1883, and the court did not purport to reclassify the tomato for botanical or other purposes other than paying a tax under a tariff act.

BTW, all I was trying to say is that it makes sense when we use the term vegetable for certain fruits because of the way we use them in meals. Classification as a vegetable for botanical or "scientific" purposes is useless since all plants and all parts of plants can be referred to for this purpose as vegetables.

Yeah, I get that. I just thought the whole concept of the court ruling was a bit ridiculous, but that was before reading that. The way that Divest mentioned it in his original post made me think that it was a recent development, not something that happened over a century ago.

Dude they called it a vegetable so schools can get away with calling ketchup a legitimate vegetable in their cafeteria diets for kids. Saving da schools money so they don't have to provide proper food!

For the longest time I've always seen tomatoes as a vegetable. I can definetely agree with the fact that it is more of a fruit than a vegetable.

I think tomatoes will always be considered a vegetable to the general public.

I remember watching an episode of Dragon's Den, its a really great show here in canada if nobody has ever seen it before. One of the products they tried to get people to invest their money with was a type of tomato jam. It was even endorsed by the prime minister of canada's top chef.

They tried to market the idea of tomato being a fruit and a lot of the investors said that the jam was actually fairly good and actually very sweet. They decided to not invest their money into it because they felt like that they would have to put in money to re-educate everybody that a tomato is an actual fruit and not a vegetable in which most people were comfortable with.

They didn't invest to their business after all but they still admitted it was a very tasty product. Even though in botanical terms the tomato is more like a fruit than a vegetable, but I'm still in that mind frame that when I look at a tomato I will always see it as more of vegetable.

It is definitely a fruit, but I sometimes think of it as a vegetable due to societal programming.

Either way, I think they taste wretched, so it is a moot point for me.