The Fruitless Debate over Tomato Classification
Don't worry--I'm not going to drag you though yet another debate about whether a tomato is a fruit or a vegetable. I've had that conversation way too many times, and each time it ends up, well, fruitless.
Instead I'll talk about the controversy itself.
First let's get one thing straight: botanically speaking, a tomato is the ripened ovary of a flowering plant. Therefore there's no question that it's a fruit.
It sounds pretty cut and dry, but in some contexts tomato categorization isn't quite that obvious. Legally, for instance, the tomato is considered a vegetable.
The need for a legal definition of tomato arose when a new 10 percent tariff was put on vegetables (but not fruit) coming into the U.S. Of course, some sneaky tomato importers tried to bypass the tariff by calling their tomatoes fruit. When the tax collector didn't go for it, the tomato importers sued.
The case, Nix v. Hedden, lasted for six years. But finally, with some help from the dictionary, the court unanimously found the tomato to be a vegetable. The reasoning was that tomatoes are eaten for the main course of a meal while fruit is usually eaten as dessert.
In fact, the USDA still considers the tomato a vegetable today. The tomato is listed with the vegetables in an annual summary supplied by the National Agricultural Statistics Service. The vegetable report also lists some other surprising would-be "fruits," including honeydew, cantaloupe, and watermelon.
Scientists who aren't even botanists have found ways to use the fruit and vegetable classification controversy. One psychological study used fruits and vegetables to explore the way we learn new concepts. The researchers presented the subjects with examples of exotic produce and asked them to use different concept-learning strategies to determine whether the produce was a fruit or a vegetable.
The source of the fuzzy line between fruits and vegetables may come from the fact that vegetables don't really exist. When you think about it, many vegetables don't have much in common with each other besides the arbitrary guideline that they are not sweet when raw. The term "vegetable" is basically just a miscellaneous category that has little
scientific basis.
The vegetable's lack of definition may have come into play last November when a law was passed about federally-subsidized school lunches. The bill allowed two tablespoons of tomato paste to continue to be considered a serving of vegetables. This means that a piece of pizza can be counted as a a vegetable for children's lunches. The airtight reasoning is that a half cup of solid tomatoes (one serving) is used to make two tablespoons of paste.
This case opens up an entire new realm of controversy. If pizza is considered a vegetable, then what else?
Though they may seem trivial and redundant, apparently conversations about fruit and vegetable classification are actually important. So I guess the next time someone tries to suck you into yet another heated argument about whether a tomato is a fruit or vegetable, maybe you should oblige.
