Is the tomato a fruit?
Well, yes it is.
Botanically Speaking
Botanically speaking, a fruit is developed from the ovary in the base of a flower and contains the seeds of the plant.
So tomatoes develop from the base of the tomato flower and contain the seeds for next year’s crop. (other examples of this would be apples, oranges, blueberries, and raspberries).
Vegetables, on the Other Hand
A “vegetable” is technically using another part of the plant such as the leaves of cabbages and lettuce. Or the roots of carrots and potatoes and stalks of celery.
These vegetables do not develop from the base of a flower and do not contain the seeds for next year’s plants.
U.S. Supreme Court
In 1893 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that while tomatoes were botanically a fruit, in U.S. law they were a vegetable.
You see, domestic producers were afraid of outside competition and if the tomato was a vegetable, it would be protected by the 10% tariff imposed on imported vegetables and the loophole that exempted tomatoes was closed.
It remains closed to this day to protect U.S. growers.
But in common speaking, we refer to tomatoes as vegetables because we use them in this way.
So – a tomato is a fruit of the tomato plant and we use it as a vegetable.
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