FRUITS WE MISTAKE FOR VEGGIES – THERE’S NOTHING FOWL ABOUT IT

MORE EXCELLENT FRUITS TO ENJOY – NO, NOT VEGETABLES!
Remember when we were young and were told, “All good boys and girls finish all their vegetables (on their plate)?” Judging from the infographic accompanying this article, we all should have been told to finish our ‘fruits’ instead of our vegetables. That’s right! Most of these commonly consumed foods that we all clumped together as one thing were actually in another category altogether. How about them apples?

Confused? Botanically, fruits vs. vegetables are defined as the former has seeds and develops from a flower and the latter is seedless and has stems, leaves, roots and flower buds. Examples of the latter are celery (stem), lettuce (leaves), broccoli (buds) and beets and carrots (roots).

Take a look at the list in the infographic! Sure some of them look pretty easy to classify. Tomatoes are probably the most obvious choice. Some of us have Ronald Reagan to thank for that one. Maybe you remember the 1980’s when his administration was credited for incorrectly declaring ketchup as a vegetable. The statement involved public school lunches in case you wanted more of a reference point. Looking further at the chart some of these fruits may have you puzzled. For example, are you wondering how avocados and olives made the list? Where are their seeds located? The seeds are actually the stones in the center of these fruits.

Looks like we aren’t the only ones who can’t tell our fruits from our vegetables. In the UK, in a survey, only half the respondents were able to correctly identify tomatoes as a fruit. The numbers precipitously drop to 34% for folks who could classify cucumbers correctly. By the time they got around to pumpkins and peppers, the numbers were in the single digits.

Fortunately, regardless of whether we can tell which from which nutritionally both fruits and vegetables are similar winners. They are both loaded with vitamins and minerals and both are lower in fat and calories than animal products. According to Dietary Guidelines we should be consuming 2 cups fruit and 2 ½ cups veggies daily. Guess what? In general we are not living up to those expectations. In general, in the USA, we eat about 1 cup fruit and 1 ½ cups veggies. In fact, there has been a decline in our consumption of both of these food categories during this decade.

So, now you’ve seen something doesn’t have to be sweet to be a fruit. It can be savory, but it does have to have seeds, or stones. Done studying the infographic? Sounds like a great veggie to end the meal. Maybe you’d prefer some fruity okra instead!

References:

Mayo Clinic – Healthy Lifestyle: Nutrition featuring vegetable differences
Most Surprising fruits commonly mistaken as vegetables
Do you know your fruits from your vegetables?