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

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

Anyone remember that jingle?

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Stardust

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

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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Thanks Cep

Gatchamania.net Administrator

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."

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?

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

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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Thanks Cep

Gatchamania.net Administrator

Meaning of NUT

Definition:

• usually large hard-shelled seed
  

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Thanks Cep

Gatchamania.net Administrator

Well at least that resolved the issue hehe.

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Thanks Cep

Gatchamania.net Administrator

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

Katse

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