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Hmm, I am not a botanist, but since watermelons have seeds, and botanically speaking seeds are in the fruit, aren't watermelon fruit botanically speaking?
by ehmish 5y ago
Hmm, I am not a botanist, but since watermelons have seeds, and botanically speaking seeds are in the fruit, aren't watermelon fruit botanically speaking?
- jarenmf 5y agoIt is the fruit we eat. However, the fruit/vegetable distinction does not make a lot of sense botanically.
- AlbertCory 5y agoI always tease vegetarians by saying "Evolutionarily, fruits want to be eaten and that's why they taste good (so animals will spread their seeds around). Vegetables don't want to be eaten, and that's why they taste bad."
- lupire 5y agowhy would that tease a vegetarian? It would tease a healthy food activist. anyway, modern popular fruits are genetically engineered to have far more sugar than pre-human-cultivated fruit.
- eru 5y agoWell, many wild fruits don't taste that great either. Most of what we are eating today comes after a long line of artificial selection.
- AlbertCory 5y agoTrue, but maybe the animals are less picky than we are.
- CRConrad 5y agoOr just as picky, but simply have different taste. Perhaps that, too, co-evolves with the fruits.
- bloak 5y agoYes, it looks like they're fruit botanically and culinarily, but they're vegetables "agriculturally", whatever that means.
- mgerdts 5y agoSeedless watermelons still have seeds, they just aren't mature when the fruit is ripe. This means they are smaller and are soft enough that eating them does not give crunch.
- phonypc 5y agoIt's all kinds of confusing. AFAIK there is no botanical notion of vegetable. It's a culinary/food term, which should just mean "edible plant matter". Which would make culinary fruit just a subset of vegetables. But for some reason popular usage dictates that the category "vegetable" excludes some sweet tasting fruit, staple starches and some other things.
- Ifkaluva 5y agoYou’re correct, the author of the article was confused. Probably got confused because watermelon are related to crops that are culturally considered to be vegetables, like cucumbers. Another thread mentioned the same.
- blacksmith_tb 5y agoI agree, though I suppose you could make a case for "vegetable" around pickling the rinds...