Question: Why is a tomato classified as a fruit??
Keywords: classified, food, fruit, tomato, vegetable
Comments
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Well i think that the tomato is classified as a fruit because it grows above the ground (well i think, not sure)
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Hi Jessboylr, thanks for contributing! Are there any fruits that grow underground though?
I just did a quick search and found that peanuts grow underground, and they would be classified as a fruit as they are the seed part of the plant. Apparently a jackfruit is a giant spiky fruit that grows underground too.
Any other ideas?
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Thank you very much!!
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id say that the tomato is a fruit becuase it has seeds… 🙂
jessboyle
annev
claudia
The age old question! I personally think there should be a separate category: fruit, vegetable and salad, and we can put the tricky ones like tomato and cucumber into salad.
It’s tricky because there are different ideas of what is a ‘fruit’. The common idea of fruit is the sweet part of a plant that we can normally eat raw and which usually contains seeds.
A biological definition is the part of a flowering plant which comes from the reproductive tissue (yes, you may have just eaten a plant ovary).
Seeds come from the reproductive parts of the plant, and I think it’s generally accepted that if you’re eating something with seeds, it’s actually a fruit (pumpkins included). Although, some plants now are bred to produce fruit without seeds (oranges, watermelons) which makes it all confusing again!
Sorry if that’s not very clear, but it’s all I’ve got.
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