Are nuts fruit or vegetables?
nuts are derived from fruit. The confusion between Fruit vs Vegetable arises from differential usage between scientists and cooks/gardeners. A fruit is the ripened ovary of a flower which encloses a seed or seeds. The ‘nut’ is the seed. A vegetable does not have a pod or separate external casing holding a seed or seeds. ‘Vegetable’ refers to another edible part of the plant that is *not* the fruit. There are treegrown true ‘nuts’ and leguminous ‘nuts’. Peanuts are not true nuts, but the seed of a legume – but they are still a fruit, as they are sprung from a flower and part of a pod/seed. The pod is forced underground to grow, which is why people sometimes think of them as a vegetable – like a potato. Tomatoes, Pumpkin, Peas and Beans and are fruit too, they are just commonly referred to as vegetables and used like vegetables… Eating the leaves, stalks or shoots of these plants would be eating vegetables – but we usually eat the fruits.
