Quote Originally Posted by bipper
Quote Originally Posted by Loony BoB
Quote Originally Posted by bipper
Quote Originally Posted by DarkLadyNyara
It doesn't mean that all that have seeds are fruit, you know. Squash has seeds, and it's a vegetable.
Tomato is a fruit.
Actually, if you want to get technical, squash are also fruit. A fruit is, by definition, the ovary of an angiosperm, or more simply, the part of the plant that contains the seeds.
Yes; in the scientific community, it is considered a fruit. A lot of "vegtables" are. They yeild the nutritional value of a vegtable though, and they do not produce a sweetened flavor, therefoe, they are traditionally known as vegtables. Simply put: Chefs will call them a vegie due to taste and nutrients, a scientist will call them a fruit due to their cosmic implimentations
Also, scientists won't call them vegetables because vegetable is not a scientific term.

I am fairly sure that vegtable is a scientific term in agriculture .
Quote Originally Posted by Wikipedia
Vegetable is a culinary term. Its definition has no scientific value, and is somewhat arbitrary and subjective. Any part of an herbaceous plant that humans eat whole or in part is a vegetable, except for culinary fruits and arguably grains, nuts, herbs, and spices. Also, mushrooms are commonly considered vegetables, despite belonging to a different biological kingdom, namely fungi (which used to be classified as plants).

Vegetables include leaf vegetables (for example lettuce), stem vegetables (asparagus), root vegetables (carrot), flower vegetables (broccoli), bulbs (garlic) and botanical fruits such as cucumbers, squashes, pumpkins, avocados, capsicums, as well as botanical pulses such as green beans, and fleshy, immature seeds such as those of peas or beans.

Since "vegetable" is not a botanical term, there is no contradiction in a plant part being a fruit botanically while still being considered a vegetable (see diagram). See Nix v. Hedden for a United States Supreme Court's ruling on the matter.

In general, vegetables are thought of as being savoury, and not sweet (with some exceptions, such as rhubarb and pumpkin).