Gatchamania.net - Print: Fruit, vegetable or nut?

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Posted by meridianday on 02-10-2004 at 09:39:

Fruit, vegetable or nut?

Me and the kid were watching tv this morning, when a little educational insert about healthy food came on. It was a walking, talking sweetcorn called Colonel Cob, who went on to explain (wearing combats and medals) how sweetcorn is a marvellously healthy thing to eat.

During his spiel, he announced that sweetcorn is a vegetable.

But, I think sweetcorn is fruit because it is the seeds of the corn plant. And my husband thinks that because it really is the seeds that get eaten, rather than being a fleshy and good tasting substance wrapped around the seeds, that it's technically a nut.

So, what do you think? Is corn on the cob a vegetable (as the animated yellow militarised cob on the telly would have us believe), a fruit, or a nut?

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Posted by Firebird on 02-10-2004 at 12:18:

Vegetable

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Posted by stardust on 02-10-2004 at 13:35:

(singing)
Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't....

Anyone remember that jingle?

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A villain must be a thing of power, handled with delicacy and grace. He must be wicked enough to excite our aversion, strong enough to arouse our fear, human enough to awaken some transient gleam of sympathy. - Agnes Repplier

Posted by CricketBeautiful on 02-10-2004 at 18:17:

Grain?

If you dry it and grind it up, it makes a nice flour or porridge -- like oatmeal and wheat.

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Posted by Cep on 02-10-2004 at 19:19:

Its a vegetable and there is a very simple way in which to tell.

1. A Fruit contains the seeds of a plant

2. A Vegetable usually doesn't have seeds and is usually a plant all to itself. (with the exception of peas & beans but they are a type of pulse).

3. A nut, is the seed of a plant.

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Posted by CricketBeautiful on 02-10-2004 at 19:43:

Uh, Cep?

Sweet corn, we eat the seeds and only the seeds.

And for veggies with seeds we eat, add tomatoes and cucumbers.

Sweet corn is taxed as a vegetable and eaten as a vegetable. Except my kids like it, so I guess it can't be one.

__________________
Between stimulus and response there is a space.
In that space is our power to choose our response.
In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

- Viktor E. Frankl

Posted by meridianday on 02-10-2004 at 20:27:

This is the basis of my confusion.

A fruit is the fruiting body of a plant. Usually with nice stuff wrapped around the seeds because they are actually meant to be eaten. So tomatoes would be fruit.

A vegetable is plant matter, such as cabbage (leaves) or turnips (roots).

A nut is the seed itself, generally defined as being in a hard shell.

So, I hadn't thought of grain being a separate item but it fits perfectly well.

And peas and beans don't fit the veggie definition, nor the fruit either. So are pulses separate from vegetables?

And then, there are bananas. Because the edible kind we get in the shops doesn't have a seed in it, so what are they?

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Mallanox : "My mother was Irish and my father was an alien. I was an only child and I dress funny." Devilstar

Posted by CricketBeautiful on 02-10-2004 at 21:14:

Actually, bananas do have seeds -- tiny things down at the bottom. Maybe some farther up. Very very tiny black specs.

__________________
Between stimulus and response there is a space.
In that space is our power to choose our response.
In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

- Viktor E. Frankl

Posted by meridianday on 02-10-2004 at 21:18:

I thought the kind we get in the shops was seedless though, and all the other kinds that we don't eat have seeds in?

__________________

Mallanox : "My mother was Irish and my father was an alien. I was an only child and I dress funny." Devilstar

Posted by Cep on 03-10-2004 at 16:47:

quote:

Originally posted by CricketBeautiful
Uh, Cep?

Sweet corn, we eat the seeds and only the seeds.

And for veggies with seeds we eat, add tomatoes and cucumbers.

Sweet corn is taxed as a vegetable and eaten as a vegetable. Except my kids like it, so I guess it can't be one.

Tomatoes are a fruit.

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Posted by Cep on 03-10-2004 at 16:50:

Meaning of VEGETABLE

Definition:

edible seeds or roots or stems or leaves or bulbs or tubers or nonsweet fruits of any of numerous herbaceous plant
any of various herbaceous plants cultivated for an edible part such as the fruit or the root of the beet or the leaf of spinach or the seeds of bean plants or the flower buds of broccoli or cauliflower
of the nature of or characteristic of or derived from plants; "decaying vegetable matter"

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Posted by Cep on 03-10-2004 at 16:50:

Meaning of FRUIT

Definition:

the ripened reproductive body of a seed plant
fruit, as of trees and plants

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Posted by Cep on 03-10-2004 at 16:52:

Meaning of NUT

Definition:

usually large hard-shelled seed

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Posted by meridianday on 04-10-2004 at 11:04:

Aha - your dictionary has more specific definitons than mine. Mine didn't include fruit as a definition of vegetable Wink

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Mallanox : "My mother was Irish and my father was an alien. I was an only child and I dress funny." Devilstar

Posted by Cep on 04-10-2004 at 12:45:

Well at least that resolved the issue hehe. Big Grin

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Posted by Firebird on 06-10-2004 at 16:51:

You mean it resolved the issue of us all being nuts?

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Like the Phoenix I rise from the fire. Beware all who try to tame me, you may get burned Flame

Posted by Berg Katse on 08-10-2004 at 04:31:

And I walk into this conversation...I should stay away longer... Tongue

Katse

Posted by Cep on 08-10-2004 at 11:49:

No! *pouncetackles Katse to the floor* your not getting away that easily! Sneeky

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Gatchamania.net Administrator Gatch

Posted by Firebird on 08-10-2004 at 16:42:

Aww Katse,

Why would you want to leave us?

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Like the Phoenix I rise from the fire. Beware all who try to tame me, you may get burned Flame

Posted by Yuki on 09-10-2004 at 04:03:

Because we are all nuts? Crying