Why tomato is considered fruit?

We can easily distinguish between most fruits and vegetables, but when it comes to the age-old debate of whether a tomato is a fruit or a vegetable, people aren't always sure what to say. The answer is that tomatoes are technically both. The definition can differ depending on whether you're speaking to a botanist – whose definition is botanical – or a nutritionist or chef, whose definition is most likely to be culinary.

The botanical classification: tomatoes are fruits

Botanists classify plants according to their physiological characteristics, including structure, function, and organisation. Therefore, botanically speaking, fruits are seed-bearing products formed by the ovary of a flowering plant – the plant’s way of spreading its seeds. Botanical fruits are fruits that grow from the plant's flowers and have at least one seed. According to this definition, tomatoes are considered fruits because they contain seeds and grow from the flower of the tomato plant.

When it comes to vegetables, botanically speaking, a vegetable is more of a general term that encompasses all of the edible parts of a plant. Vegetables are any part of a plant that is not a fruit, including leaves (spinach, lettuce, cabbage), roots (carrots, beets, turnips), stems (asparagus), tubers (potatoes), bulbs (onions), and flowers (cauliflower and broccoli). 

Yet, from a culinary perspective, it's a whole other story.

The culinary classification: tomatoes are vegetables

Foodies, nutritionists, and chefs use the culinary classification system, which defines fruits and vegetables differently, depending on their uses and flavour profiles. From a culinary perspective, vegetables have a tougher texture, are blander in flavour, and are usually cooked. In contrast, fruits have a soft texture, tend to be sweet or tart, and are typically eaten raw or in desserts or jams. Tomatoes can be juicy, sweet and enjoyed raw. Yet, tomatoes are also used in savoury dishes, which is why they are usually classified as vegetables. Generally, tomatoes are not used in desserts, and they are closely related to other fruit-vegetables, so it makes sense for tomatoes to be classified as vegetables.

To sum up - tomatoes are both fruits and vegetables

Tomatoes are fruits that are regarded as vegetables by nutritionists.

Though tomato is a fruit from a botanical perspective, it’s often used in savoury dishes, hence its culinary classification as a vegetable.

Other fruits that are commonly known as vegetables

Are they vegetables or fruits? For some reason, tomatoes are always taken as a classic example of this eternal debate. Tomatoes are not the only common vegetables that are fruits. We have seen that, in the world of food, there are many plants most people consider vegetables that are actually fruits, botanically speaking. We have already learned that fruits are ripened flower ovaries and contain seeds, so this botanical classification also applies to any vegetable with seeds: squash, pumpkins, cucumbers, peppers, eggplants, beans, peas, chickpeas, courgettes or zucchini, corn, avocados, and olives. 

There’s no doubt that tomatoes are one of the most versatile foods around, as happy in a summer salad as they are in a comforting pizza sauce (big thank you to the person who invented pizza, by the way.) But is tomato a fruit? Or are we eating a vegetable? It’s one of those food facts people love to debate, like if eggplant is a fruit or vegetable, if cucumber is a fruit or vegetable, if avocado is a fruit or vegetable, and if peanuts are nuts.

There’s a tomato in every color and every preference. Cherry, beefsteak, heritage, sweet, or beautifully acidic, they’re all tomatoes, and they’re all delicious. As a bonus, they’re also one of the easiest vegetables to grow at home. Or is it easiest fruits? Good tomatoes taste like sunshine, and that should be all we need to know. It turns out, though, that defining whether a food is a fruit or a vegetable isn’t as simple as it might seem.

What is the difference between a fruit and a vegetable?

Before we get into the whole “is tomato a fruit” debate, let’s define what fruits and vegetables are. According to Merriam-Webster, fruits are “the usually edible reproductive body of a seed plant, especially: one having a sweet pulp.”

Merriam-Webster defines a vegetable as “a usually herbaceous plant grown for an edible part that is usually eaten as part of a meal.” This means that the vegetable category includes all plant parts, like roots, leaves, and stems. Fruit, on the other hand, is only the seed-carrying part of the plant. So things like beets, spinach, and broccoli are all vegetables, and are best eaten when they’re in season (find a guide here!)

Farmers, chefs, and lawyers all have different answers to this question. It may seem simple to us. Eat it for lunch? Vegetable. Eat it for dessert? Fruit! But it’s not that easy. There are legal definitions of fruits and vegetables, as well as scientific ones. Tomatoes fit the scientific definition of fruit as they form from a flower and contain seeds. So botanically, tomatoes are fruit. However, the way we eat them and treat them in cooking means that they also fall into the legal category of vegetables.

Why are tomatoes fruit?

The actual tomato plant is a seed plant that grows the red, edible tomatoes people know and love. Although tomatoes aren’t known for being as sweet as other fruit (like peaches), they’re not as bitter as some vegetables (looking at you, Brussels sprouts). With this definition in mind, everything from peppers to cucumbers are also fruit, while carrots and potatoes are not. It’s an interesting fact that potatoes are actually distant relatives of the tomato. However, as root vegetables, they don’t fit the “fruit of the vine” definition that makes tomatoes a fruit.

Which type of fruit is a tomato? Technically, it’s a berry, which is defined by Brittanica as a “fleshy fruit that usually has many seeds.”

While tomatoes are scientifically fruits, they’re legally classed as vegetables. From the definitions previously mentioned, it might seem like tomatoes are unequivocally not vegetables. So, is tomato a fruit then? Not exactly.

In 1893, Congress passed a tariff act putting a 10 percent tax on whole vegetables. So, to avoid paying the fee, merchants claimed that tomatoes are fruit. A decision made by the Supreme Court for the case stated that tomatoes should be classified as a vegetable instead of a fruit for the “purposes of trade and commerce,” since chefs prepare them and people eat them like vegetables. This means, legally speaking, tomatoes are vegetables.

Tomatoes are fruits and vegetables

Is tomato a fruit? Is tomato a vegetable? The simple answer: it’s both a fruit and a vegetable. No matter what you call it, a tomato is a great food to include in your diet since it contains essential fiber, vitamins, nutrients, and antioxidants. You should eat them regularly alongside all your other favorite fruits and vegetables.

When it comes down to a tomato’s exact categorization, it doesn’t really matter. After all, there’s a reason that the World Health Organization recommends that all humans eat a minimum of five portions of fruits and vegetables per day. They’re equally beneficial, and equally necessary for our bodies to function. Whether you like tomato salad or prefer tomato soup, eating this fruit/vegetable will do you good.

Now, do you know the difference between stock and broth?

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Originally Published: February 18, 2022

Everybody knows the difference between a fruit and a vegetable, right? Fruits are tempting and scrumptious. Adam and Eve, unable to resist one, were booted from the blissful Garden of Eden; a fruit kicked off the Trojan War; and a fruit so seduced kidnapped Persephone in the Underworld that she simply couldn’t help taking a bite, thus landing the rest of us forevermore with the chilly season of winter. Vegetables don’t pack this kind of punch. Vegetables, traditionally, are the stuff kids push around on their plates and hide under their mashed potatoes.

So what’s the real difference between fruits and vegetables? Which is which?

To a botanist, a fruit is an entity that develops from the fertilized ovary of a flower. This means that tomatoes, squash, pumpkins, cucumbers, peppers, eggplants, corn kernels, and bean and pea pods are all fruits; so are apples, pears, peaches, apricots, melons and mangos. A vegetable, botanically, is any edible part of a plant that doesn’t happen to be a fruit, as in leaves (spinach, lettuce, cabbage), roots (carrots, beets, turnips), stems (asparagus), tubers (potatoes), bulbs (onions), and flowers (cauliflower and broccoli).

Politically and culinarily, however, it’s a whole different ball game.

The Supreme Court Weighs In

The classical vegetable/fruit story is the tetchy tale of the tomato. In 1886, importer John Nix and colleagues landed a load of West Indian tomatoes at the Port of New York where the resident customs official—one Edward Hedden—demanded payment of a ten percent tax in accordance with the Tariff Act of 1883, which levied an import duty on “foreign vegetables.” Nix, who knew his botany, objected, on the grounds that the tomato –a fruit — should be tax-exempt. The case eventually made its way to the Supreme Court where, in 1893, Justice Horace Gray ruled in favor of vegetable.

“Botanically speaking,” said Justice Gray, “tomatoes are the fruit of the vine, just as are cucumbers, squashes, beans and peas. But in the common language of the people…all these vegetables…are usually served at dinner in, with, or after the soup, fish, or meat, which constitute the principal part of the repast, and not, like fruits, generally as dessert.”

This was neither the first nor the last time that the Supreme Court was forced to struggle with botanical definitions of food. In 1886, Justice Joseph Bradley in Robertson v. Salomon ruled that beans were vegetables. (The lawyer for the protesting importer, arguing that beans were seeds, pointed to garden catalogs; the defense countered with a dinner recipe for baked beans.) “The Supreme Court has just decided that beans are vegetables,” commented a gleeful Iowa newspaper. “This is rough on Boston. That cultured city can no longer push them on to a suffering world as fruit.”

Subsequent court decisions found truffles, onions, and water chestnuts also to be vegetables, but ruled that rhubarb (a leaf petiole or stalk, like celery) was a fruit, presumably from its popularity in strawberry-rhubarb pie. In 2001, the European Union declared carrots, sweet potatoes, and the now thoroughly confused tomatoes all to be fruits, at least for the purpose of making jam.

Oklahoma’s State Vegetable: The Watermelon

State legislatures have muddied the fruit/vegetable waters still more. The custom of creating state symbols dates to the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 (a.k.a. the Chicago World’s Fair), where some 27 million visitors viewed 65,000 exhibits, among them the world’s largest conveyor belt, a U.S. map made of pickles, Bach’s clavichord, a herd of ostriches, and a 22,000-pound Canadian cheese. Also featured at the Fair was the National Garland of Flowers, for which each state was asked to select a representative flower.

State flowers were soon followed by a host of other official state symbols, among them birds, trees, animals, insects, reptiles, fossils, minerals, gemstones, songs, and folk dances. Utah and Delaware now have official state stars. Maine, Massachusetts, and North Carolina have official state boats. Texas has designated the cowboy boot its Official State Footwear. In the food category, we have official state fruits, vegetables, nuts, grains, herbs, beverages, muffins, cookies, and pies.

Some state fruit and vegetable decisions have been straightforward. Six states, for example, chose the apple as their symbolic fruit, and three opted for the strawberry. Two—Georgia and South Carolina—chose the peach; Alabama—unable to make up its mind—picked the blackberry as state fruit and the peach as the state tree fruit.

Tennessee and Ohio went with botany and chose the tomato as their state fruit; Arkansas, hedging its bets, decreed the tomato to be both the state’s official fruit and official vegetable. Louisiana, on the other hand, appointed the sweet potato state vegetable, but named the tomato the state’s official “vegetable plant.” (Louisiana’s state fruit is the strawberry; they’ve also got a state doughnut, a state jelly, and a state meat pie.)

Oddest of all, perhaps, is Oklahoma, whose state vegetable, as of 2006, is the watermelon. The Oklahoma watermelon bill was sponsored by senator Don Barrington, Republican, from the watermelon-growing district of Rush Springs, and former winner of a hometown watermelon-seed-spitting contest. Barrington’s argument was that the watermelon was a vegetable by virtue of its genetic relationship to the obviously vegetable (that is, not eaten as dessert) cucumber and gourd; and he got some back-up from the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service, which lists melons under “Vegetables.” The deciding factor, on the other hand, may have been the fact that Oklahoma already had a state fruit: the strawberry.

Fruit’s Place in History

Our word fruit comes to us from the Latin fructus or frui, meaning to enjoy; vegetable, a more stolid, commonsensical kind of word, comes from vegetabilis, which means growing (as in plants). Much of the enjoyable appeal of fruits lies in their irresistible sweetness: most temperate-zone fruits contain about 10 to 15 percent sugar by weight, and tropical fruits, by and large, are even sweeter. A juicy apple or orange, contains about 23 grams of sugar; a banana, 17 grams; a peach, 15; and a ripe fig, 10.

Overall deliciousness explains why fruit tends to lead us into temptation. If thieves sneak into your garden, they’re more likely to pinch the peaches than the peas. In early America, cautionary tales of moral instruction sternly warned that stealing fruit was the sort of gateway sin that led children straight to a life of crime. In Victorian England, filching fruit could get you transported or hanged. Even so, it’s a sin with a long persistent history. Even Saint Augustine, in his pre-sainthood days, admitted to having stolen pears.

No one, however, puts a better spin on stealing fruit than Mark Twain. Twain (along with his most famous hero, Huckleberry Finn) was a shameless stealer of watermelons. In one story, he tells how, as a boy, he lifted a melon out of a farmer’s cart while the farmer was waiting on a customer. He ran away with it, retreated with it to a “secluded bower,” broke it open, and found it green. This led to some soul-searching.

“What ought a boy do who has stolen a green watermelon? What would George Washington do? Now was the time for all the lessons inculcated at Sunday School to act. And they did act. The word that came to me was ‘restitution.’”

So young Twain took the watermelon back to the farmer and conned him into apologizing and handing over a ripe one. Here lies, in my opinion, the solution to the slippery conundrum of fruit vs. vegetable. The watermelon, Oklahoma, is not a vegetable. It’s a fruit.

Nobody goes to that kind of trouble over a vegetable.

References:

• State Symbols USA lists all official state symbols, categorized by both symbol category and state.
• Mark Twain’s Melon is the full text of his speech on “Practical Morality” delivered at the New Savage Club, London.