Why is eggplant considered a vegetable?
Eggplants are fruits due to the way they grow. Fruits develop from the flower of a plant and contain seeds, whereas vegetables are any other part of the plant: roots, stems, or leaves. Eggplants belong to the nightshade family, which includes tomatoes and potatoes. We should all be so lucky in our relatives.
Which vegetables are actually fruits?
Tomatoes.Tomatillos.Sweet peppers.Eggplants.Winter squashes (like butternut)Summer squashes (like zucchini)Cucumbers.Bitter gourds.More items...•
Why is eggplant a berry?
Prepared as a culinary vegetable but really a fruit, eggplant is classified as a berry because it contains small, edible seeds.
What kind of vegetable are eggplants?
berryEggplants are berry-producing vegetables belonging to the large Solanaceae family (nightshade family), which contains ~3,000 species distributed in some 90 genera (Vorontsova and Knapp, 2012).
Is potato a fruit?
More specifically, potatoes are tubers, a type of root vegetable. They aren't the roots of the potato plant themselves, but rather they grow off of those roots. Potatoes are certainly edible, and they're almost exclusively used in savory dishes, with or without a protein. Potatoes are not fruit, however.
Is potato a vegetable?
Now we've established that a potato is in fact botanically vegetable, we can confirm that they also belong to the carbohydrate group, one of the three main macronutrients in our diet.
Is avocado fruit or veg?
fruitsAvocados are one of the few fruits (yes, technically they're a fruit, not a veggie) that contain healthy unsaturated fats. These fats help lower undesirable LDL cholesterol when eaten in place of saturated fat. The popular Haas avocado, which has dark-green, nubby skin, grows year-round in California.
Is Avocado a berry?
A berry, which has a fleshy exocarp (rind) and a fleshy mesocarp (pulp), is any soft and fleshy fruit that comes from a flower with a single ovary. This means avocados, tomatoes, bananas, and oranges are all technically berries.
Is okra a fruit?
Biologically classified as a fruit, okra is generally utilized like a vegetable in cooking. It's frequently used in Southern American cuisine and a popular addition to gumbo. Yet, it can have a slimy texture, which some people find unappealing.
What is considered a fruit?
A fruit is a mature, ripened ovary, along with the contents of the ovary. The ovary is the ovule-bearing reproductive structure in the plant flower. The ovary serves to enclose and protect the ovules, from the youngest stages of flower development until the ovules become fertilized and turn into seeds.
What is difference between vegetable and fruit?
A fruit develops from the flower of a plant, while the other parts of the plant are categorized as vegetables. Fruits contain seeds, while vegetables can consist of roots, stems and leaves.
What fruit is mistaken for a vegetable?
Fruits commonly mistaken as vegetables: Tomatoes, Peppers, Beans, Peapods, Avocado, Squash, Zucchini, Cucumbers, Olives, Corn Kernels, Pumpkins & Nuts. Another thing I couldn't believe made the fruit list are nuts. Nuts are technically a fruit that is made up of a hard shell and a seed.
Is Eggplant A Fruit?
When it comes to classifying fruits and vegetables, opinions are always divided. A botanist will have specific criteria to determine which category they fall under, while a chef will sort them based on other rules.
Is Eggplant A Vegetable?
What we commonly refer to as “vegetables,” doesn’t have a real value in botanical terminology. Hence, we can’t make a clear distinction between the specialized definition of vegetables and the one used by the rest of the world.
Is Eggplant A Berry?
Another theory regarding eggplants says that they are actually berries.
Description
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History
There is no consensus about the place of origin of eggplant; the plant species has been described as native to India, where it continues to grow wild, Africa, or South Asia. It has been cultivated in southern and eastern Asia since prehistory.
Etymology and regional names
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Cultivars
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Cooking and preparing
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Cultivation and pests
In tropical and subtropical climates, eggplant can be sown in the garden. Eggplant grown in temperate climates fares better when transplanted into the garden after all danger of frost has passed. Eggplant prefers hot weather, and when grown in cold climates or in areas with low humidity, the plants languish or fail to set and produce mature fruit.
Host plant
The potato tuber moth ( Phthorimaea operculella) is an oligophagous insect that prefers to feed on plants of the family Solanaceae such as eggplants. Female P. operculella use the leaves to lay their eggs and the hatched larvae will eat away at the mesophyll of the leaf.
Health Benefits
The eggplant has been an ingredient in traditional medicine for thousands of years. In the ancient Indian system of ayurvedic medicine, practitioners used white eggplant to treat diabetes and the roots to relieve asthma.
Are There Any Risks?
Eggplant and other nightshade vegetables have the chemical solanine, which some people claim adds to inflammation and makes diseases like arthritis worse. There's no solid evidence that the small amount of solanine in eggplant worsens arthritis symptoms. But if you notice that your joint pain flares up after you eat eggplant, avoid it.
How to Prepare and Store Eggplant
Before you cook eggplant, wash it and cut off both ends. The skin is OK to eat, but you might want to remove it if you find it too chewy.
Tomatoes
Even though tomatoes are technically a fruit, it doesn't stop people from treating it and most of the other foods on this list as a vegetable.
Peppers
Every kind of pepper, from the bell pepper to the jalapeño, fits the bill as a fruit and not a vegetable.
Pumpkins
Anyone who's carved a jack-o-lantern for Halloween knows that pumpkins are full of seeds. Pumpkins and all other gourds are technically fruits, not vegetables.
Cucumbers
Speaking of gourds, cucumbers are an unexpected member of that family, too. Will you ever look at pickles the same way again?
Peas
Technically, peas aren't the fruit here, but the pods are. That's because they contain the seeds — the peas — that the plant uses to reproduce.
String beans
That's right, one of America's favorite vegetables is really a fruit in disguise.
Eggplant
Not only are eggplants fruits, they're technically classified as a berry.
Quick summary
Technically speaking, a fruit is a plant’s developed ovary that comes from a flower and contains one or multiple seeds. The term vegetable is much broader—it refers to any part of a plant that’s used for food, including the roots, tubers, stems, and leaves. Many of the foods that we casually call vegetables, like tomatoes, are technically fruits.
What is the difference between a fruit and a vegetable?
To a botanist, the word fruit specifically refers to the edible part of a seed plant that develops from a flower into a ripened ovary that contains one or more seeds—fertilized seeds capable of generating a new plant.
Tomato: fruit or vegetable?
It’s both. No matter how you slice it, a tomato is technically a fruit (the seed-filled ovary of the plant), but it’s typically treated as (and called) a vegetable. The classification confusion is understandable, given its savory but sweet flavor and the fact that it’s commonly used in savory dishes in the same way that vegetables usually are.
Fruit vs. vegetable list
You might be thinking that grains are a surprising inclusion in the fruit category. They aren’t the only fruits that often get left out of the fruit conversation, either. Nuts, berries, and pods (such as peas) are also technically fruits.
Take the Quiz: Do you know your fruits and vegetables?
Now that we’ve satisfied your hunger for fruit vs. vegetable knowledge, head over to our quiz on the topic where you can squash the competition with your zesty skills.
Overview
Eggplant (US, Canada, Australia ), aubergine (UK, Ireland) or brinjal (Indian subcontinent, Singapore, Malaysia, South Africa) is a plant species in the nightshade family Solanaceae. Solanum melongena is grown worldwide for its edible fruit.
Most commonly purple, the spongy, absorbent fruit is used in several cuisines. Typically used as a vegetable in cooking, it is a berry by botanical definition. As a member of the genus Solanum, it is r…
Description
The eggplant is a delicate, tropical perennial plant often cultivated as a tender or half-hardy annual in temperate climates. The stem is often spiny. The flowers are white to purple in color, with a five-lobed corolla and yellow stamens. Some common cultivars have fruit that is egg-shaped, glossy, and purple with white flesh and a spongy, "meaty" texture. Some other cultivars are white and longer in shape. The cut surface of the flesh rapidly turns brown when the fruit is cut open (oxid…
History
There is no consensus about the place of origin of eggplant; the plant species has been described as native to India, where it continues to grow wild, Africa, or South Asia. It has been cultivated in southern and eastern Asia since prehistory. The first known written record of the plant is found in Qimin Yaoshu, an ancient Chinese agricultural treatise completed in 544 CE. The numerous Arabic and North African names for it, along with the lack of the ancient Greek and Roman names, indic…
Etymology and regional names
The plant and fruit have a profusion of English names.
The name eggplant is usual in North American English and Australian English. First recorded in 1763, the word "eggplant" was originally applied to white cultivars, which look very much like hen's eggs (see image). Similar names are widespread in other languages, such as the Icelandic term eggaldin or the Welsh planhigyn ŵy.
Cultivars
Different cultivars of the plant produce fruit of different size, shape, and color, though typically purple. The less common white varieties of eggplant are also known as Easter white eggplants, garden eggs, Casper or white eggplant. The most widely cultivated varieties—cultivars—in Europe and North America today are elongated ovoid, 12–25 cm (4+1⁄2–10 in) long and 6–9 cm (2+1⁄2–3+1⁄2 in) broad with a dark purple skin.
Cooking and preparing
Raw eggplant can have a bitter taste, with an astringent quality, but it becomes tender when cooked and develops a rich, complex flavor. Rinsing, draining, and salting the sliced fruit before cooking may remove the bitterness. The fruit is capable of absorbing cooking fats and sauces, which may enhance the flavor of eggplant dishes.
Eggplant is used in the cuisines of many countries. Due to its texture and bulk, it is sometimes u…
Cultivation and pests
In tropical and subtropical climates, eggplant can be sown in the garden. Eggplant grown in temperate climates fares better when transplanted into the garden after all danger of frost has passed. Eggplant prefers hot weather, and when grown in cold climates or in areas with low humidity, the plants languish or fail to set and produce mature fruit. Seeds are typically started eight to 10 weeks prior to the anticipated frost-free date. S. melongena is included on a list of low
Host plant
The potato tuber moth (Phthorimaea operculella) is an oligophagous insect that prefers to feed on plants of the family Solanaceae such as eggplants. Female P. operculella use the leaves to lay their eggs and the hatched larvae will eat away at the mesophyll of the leaf.