Comments

You must log in or register to comment.

LeafsOrks t1_iuaedmj wrote

Also. Cucumbers are melons.

11

Burnt303 t1_iuahnzs wrote

Pumpkins meanwhile are real berries.

10

iTanooki t1_iuahp8s wrote

Replying to [deleted] (#323,127)

How many other “fish” have no gills? Oceanic mammals typically aren’t at risk of drowning, as they can easily float for hours at a time and hold their breath for crazy lengths, too.

17

yesiamathing t1_iuahuei wrote

Wait till you look into which "nuts" are actually nuts, botanically speaking.

9

ZanyDelaney t1_iuaihwe wrote

Yeah there are a few fruit / vegetable / berry / tree / herb terminology issues.

Fruit can be used in a botanical sense. In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants, formed from the ovary after flowering.

In common language/culinary usage, "fruit" normally means the fleshy seed-associated structures of a plant that are sweet or sour, and edible in the raw state, such as apples, bananas, grapes, lemons, oranges, and strawberries.

The botanical usage includes many structures that are not commonly called "fruits", such as bean pods, corn kernels, tomatoes, and wheat grains. The section of a fungus that produces spores is also called a fruiting body.

Vegetable in common/culinary usage usually refers to parts of plants that are consumed by humans as food as part of a meal.

This definition is applied somewhat arbitrarily, often by culinary and cultural tradition. It may exclude foods derived from some plants that are fruits, nuts, and cereal grains, but include fruits from others such as tomatoes and courgettes and seeds such as pulses.

The original meaning of vegetable is applied to plants collectively to refer to all edible plant matter, including the flowers, fruits, stems, leaves, roots, and seeds.

In summary:

The term "Fruit" is used in both a cultural/culinary sense, and a botanical sense.

The term "Vegetable" also has two definitions, one cultural/culinary.

If you compare the culinary fruit and the culinary vegetable, it usually neatly divides foods into categories.

If you start bringing in botanical fruits, they will not always fit into our idea of fruit in a culinary sense. Botanical fruits will include some things that are considered a vegetable in the cultural/culinary definition of vegetable.

If you are thinking in the older sense of vegetable, then all botanical fruits are within that category, and all culinary fruits are also all within the category.

Also there is a culinary/common usage idea of what a berry is, but it is different from the botanical definition of a berry. This is where bananas and strawberries come in.

Banana trees are a herbaceous plant, herbaceous plant being a botanical definition.

> Herbaceous plants in botany, frequently shortened to herbs, are vascular plants that have no persistent woody stems above ground. Herb has other meanings in cooking, medicine, and other fields. Herbaceous plants are those plants that do not have woody stems, they include many perennials, and nearly all annuals and biennials, they include both forbs and graminoids.

> Herbaceous plants most often are low growing plants, different from woody plants like trees, and tend to have soft green stems that lack lignification and their above-ground growth is ephemeral and often seasonal in duration.

There is also the general term, "herb".

> In general use, herbs are plants with savory or aromatic properties that are used for flavoring and garnishing food, for medicinal purposes, or for fragrances; excluding vegetables and other plants consumed for macronutrients. Culinary use typically distinguishes herbs from spices. Herbs generally refers to the leafy green or flowering parts of a plant (either fresh or dried), while spices are usually dried and produced from other parts of the plant, including seeds, bark, roots and fruits.

> Herbs have a variety of uses including culinary, medicinal, and in some cases, spiritual. General usage of the term "herb" differs between culinary herbs and medicinal herbs; in medicinal or spiritual use, any parts of the plant might be considered as "herbs", including leaves, roots, flowers, seeds, root bark, inner bark (and cambium), resin and pericarp.

So essentially, the word "herb" is used is two different senses.

49

SEND_PUNS_PLZ t1_iuaj8t6 wrote

I was going say something fruitful but this comment will just get berried

12

Xeludon t1_iuajqj4 wrote

I mean, sure, but what difference does any of that make to anyone who isn't a botanist?

Strawberries, raspberries and blackberries will always be berries, because everyone sees small, roundish fruit as berries.

The definition of a berry is "a small, roundish, juicy fruit without a stone." They fit the definition.

Berries are also any various kernels and seeds, like coffee beans.

Basically; they're berries.

0

Cognitively_Absurd t1_iuajurl wrote

Oh, and another fun one: peanuts are not botanical nuts, they are, in fact, a legume.

5

Disgustip8ed t1_iualjum wrote

I shall now call them rasps, straws, and blacks. My smoothie orders will be 🔥🔥🔥

0

Huegod t1_iuam35l wrote

What of snozberries?

−1

greenappletree t1_iuapth1 wrote

and a peanut, literally with the word nut in it, is not a true nut. What a crazy world we live in and btw a cocunut is a fruit, haahah

1

50StatePiss t1_iuasm5w wrote

We're fine with thse rule bending fruits but we're not allowed to call Pluto a planet? Science is weird.

4

Ph33rDensetsu t1_iuauz7p wrote

So Nanab Berries from Pokemon actually make more sense than Rawst Berries...

4

IceNein t1_iub0bvo wrote

Replying to [deleted] (#323,127)

Well there’s also the fact that berry has a botanical definition and a culinary definition. It’s the same deal with vegetables that are fruits.

It’s comparing apples and oranges, for example there is no horticultural definition of vegetable. So botanically there is no such thing as a vegetable.

13

jizzlevania t1_iub0h2r wrote

dingleberries are classified as turd, for anyone with that taxonomy query

7

Deracination t1_iub5uiv wrote

Replying to [deleted] (#323,127)

I always go with descriptive grammar with things like this. Language is just a way to group ideas to communicate them more efficiently. The way we need to do this is context-dependant; a botanist doesn't care much how things taste, and a chef doesn't care much how things reproduce. Thus, they use different language, and that's good.

3

PrestigiousGuess458 t1_iub8d2q wrote

Discussion of fruit categories always conjures the word 'Drupe Sack' for me. Top 10 phrase.

1

iamamuttonhead t1_iubcoki wrote

The number of people in the world who care what botanists think is a fruit is likely to be only marginally greater than the number of botanists in the world.

1

Tyraels_Might t1_iubiaiu wrote

Replying to [deleted] (#323,127)

Instead of a officially science, you might phrase it as agreed-upon science convention. I say this because officially tends to give authority or credence to the content that follows. The word berry could have been defined to represent something else entirely, but it represents what it does in Biology by convention.

1

SeiCalros t1_iubm14i wrote

Replying to [deleted] (#323,127)

its not necessarily just layman speak - theyre culinary terms as well

like fruit and vegetable are culinary terms - but fruit also has a biological definition that includes many vegetables and excludes many fruits

5

DatTF2 t1_iubn4fo wrote

Replying to StarChaser_Tyger (#330,340)

>"Intelligence is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing it doesn't go in fruit salad."

Whenever I hear this quote I have mixed feelings. For most people the tomatoes they know definitely don't belong in a fruit salad. Tomatoes bought in stores are awful, varieties bred to look good instead of taste good, picked green and ripened with gas.

Now I have grown some cherry tomato varieties that were incredibly sweet, tangy and they would have a place in a fruit salad. It's a shame that you have to grow your own because the ones in stores are fucking awful.

So yeah, while rare there are some varieties of tomato I do feel have a place in a fruit salad.

4

StarChaser_Tyger t1_iubnpoc wrote

Replying to DatTF2 (#331,443)

I've had home grown cherry and campari (sized, at least) tomatoes, and while they are sweet, it's relative; like a vidalia onion is 'sweet' in comparison to a normal white onion, it's not what anyone would call sweet itself.

I love tomatoes. I've grown some (very few; stupid birds/bugs/deadly sky laser), I've had a bunch of heirloom varieties I can't remember the names of, but none of them would fit in what's generally referred to as fruit salad.

3

Goodly88 t1_iubq9vy wrote

If their nit called berries. Then, what?

0

ffsudjat t1_iubr8o1 wrote

And what about shrubbery? Ni!

1

buttmike1 t1_iubrkaa wrote

Dingleberries are just low hanging fruit.

1

HPmoni t1_iubwdcp wrote

Nerds trying to ruin our berries!

1

K5izzle t1_iubwjje wrote

Same with cucumbers. Go figure.

1

AbstracTyler t1_iubz3wx wrote

Blackberries are berries and that's that!

1

prjindigo t1_iuc120s wrote

not all blueberries are berries tho

0

zachzsg t1_iuc6nsa wrote

Replying to IceNein (#326,987)

I’ve always just viewed vegetables as the plant itself. If you’re eating the actual plant you’re eating a vegetable. If you’re eating the product of a plant you’re eating a fruit. Not very scientific but works for me lol

−1

SilasX t1_iuc6zlq wrote

>At least blueberries are indeed berries.

Were you trying to sound funny by putting that at the end?

1

sciamatic t1_iuc7dcc wrote

I'm gonna call bullshit on these sorts of things.

The definition of "berry" and "fruit" has existed for hundreds of years, and their lingual predecessors thousands of years.

I get that biology came along and found out that a tomato has more in common with an apple than it does lettuce, but clearly that doesn't change the definition of "fruit". It just means that science needs to come up with new words for these genetic and phenotypical groups. I don't care what they call them.

But a strawberry is a berry because that's what "berry" means. The fact that their seed distribution puts them in some other, science-based category as well doesn't really change that.

5

NinDiGu t1_iuc7kyo wrote

Replying to iTanooki (#323,517)

> hold their breath for crazy lengths

Not really. Humans can hold their breath as long as dolphins.

Turtles drown routinely from running out of oxygen. As do marine animals.

Living in the ocean is safer for ocean living surface breathing animals because they are thermally adapted, and a good measure of airway protection so that when they are at the surface they are not drowned by water in their throat (this is what drowns humans) but surface breathers live at the same knife edge as humans do it in the water, and can drown just as quickly if they are kept from the surface.

1

sushipusha t1_iuc9djd wrote

I believe those three along with apples are called Accessory Fruit.

Information I've learned that I never thought I'd share.

1

DatTF2 t1_iuck34w wrote

Replying to StarChaser_Tyger (#331,557)

Depends on the variety. Not all cherry tomatoes are super sweet but a couple I have grown have had a really high sugar content, really sweet and tangy.

I would agree that most tomatoes don't belong in a fruit salad, however there are a couple that could.

1

WilliamMorris420 t1_iuckcne wrote

Except most blueberries arent actually blueberries. They're normally a mix of; sugar, corn syrup, starch, hydrogenated oil, artificial flavors and artificial food dye blue No. 2 and red No. 40.  Particularly by cereal manufacturers including Kellogs, General Mills...

https://www.latimes.com/health/la-xpm-2011-jan-20-la-heb-fake-blueberries-20110120-story.html

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2011/01/20/133089144/fake-blueberries-often-masquerade-as-real-fruit#:~:text=Instead%20of%20using%20real%20blueberries,with%20packaged%20cereal%20claims%20before.

1

TheHouIeigan t1_iucosvl wrote

and none of them care where humans classify them

1

GabuEx t1_iucshst wrote

I'm not a linguistic prescriptivist, mind you, but I would suggest that if you decide to define "berry" such that most things people call "berries" don't fit your definition, and such that a ton of things people absolutely do not call "berries" do, then your definition is wrong.

I'm sure you've described a perfectly reasonable category of things, but calling the set "berries" is just incorrect naming.

5

willie_caine t1_iudr6uq wrote

Replying to NinDiGu (#335,552)

>Humans can hold their breath as long as dolphins.

Eeeeeeh not to be that guy but on average, dolphins can hold their breaths for 8-10 minutes. Humans are closer to 2 minutes tops, some as low as 30 seconds, and that's not including people who just freak out when their heads are submerged...

2

NinDiGu t1_iudygxn wrote

Replying to willie_caine (#346,639)

The only people who can only hold their breath for two minutes are people who have never practiced it.

Ask a free dive instructor about how long it takes a classroom of average students to learn to hold their breath for more than two minutes even when they max out at 10-20 seconds their first try.

We are talking about capabilities here, and dolphins do not have the deep diving abilities that whales and sea lions and elephant seals do.

They have about the same capabilities as humans.

0

NinDiGu t1_iuet6d0 wrote

Replying to willie_caine (#350,034)

You are. I am talking about the capabilities of the species

Dolphins are in motion they entire lives even when they are asleep.

For most of human existence until we started exploiting fossil fuel to become WALL-E human tubs of lard, we exercised at least 8 hours a day.

−1