is broccoli a fruit

by Bernadette Dicki Published 3 years ago Updated 2 years ago

The head, or flower, vegetables include artichokes, broccoli, and cauliflower. The fruits commonly considered vegetables by virtue of their use include cucumbers, eggplant, okra, sweet corn, squash, peppers, and tomatoes. Seed vegetables are usually legumes, such as peas and beans.

Is broccoli technically a fruit?

“Broccoli” is a plant, and the flower buds and stems are the part that is usually sold and eaten, not the fruit, although like all Angiosperms (except for sterile forms), they make fruits, which are of no commercial or culinary relevance, so broccoli can technically be a fruit, but the flower buds and stems are obviously not fruit, only the long seed 'pods' that form after blooming are fruits.

Is broccoli a flower or a vegetable?

The broccoli plant is also considered a flower, because as it matures it produces flowers. So the most technically correct categorization of broccoli is a flower vegetable and not a fruit. This is beacuse it has a head and a stem like cauliflower, which is edible, and it also has seeds that produce flowers which are not edible.

How does Broccoli make its own food?

There are three main ways to make riced broccoli:

Food processor: Place broccoli florets in your food processor and pulse until you get a rice-like texture (see the video in this post). ...
Grater: Run each broccoli floret back and forth on a box or hand grater. ...
Chef’s knife: Broccoli florets will naturally start to fall apart into tiny pieces if you trim off as much of the stem as possible. ...

What is good substitute for Broccoli?

Top Broccoli Substitutes

Spinach. If you are looking to increase your greens in your daily diet, spinach makes a great substitute for broccoli.
Green Cabbage. Green cabbage tastes delicious and gets a crispy texture when stir-fried. ...
Brussels Sprouts. Roasted brussels sprouts with garlic and olive oil make an excellent side dish if you cannot stand broccoli.

Why is broccoli not a fruit?

This means that while you might now think that by this definition, broccoli and cauliflower are technically fruits, they're actually not, because they're unopened flower buds that have not yet developed.

What veggies are actually fruits?

14 vegetables that are actually fruitsTomatoes. Shutterstock/Ninekas. ... Peppers. Dean Hochman / Flickr (CC-BY-2.0) ... Pumpkins. Aaron Burden / Unsplash. ... Cucumbers. Flickr / Stacey Spensley. ... Peas. Flickr / Kari Söderholm. ... String beans. whole foods facebook. ... Eggplant. Flickr Creative Commons/Ivanatman. ... Okra. Joe Raedle/Getty Images.More items...•24-Jun-2018

Is broccoli a flower?

Vegetables that are flower: Broccoli Broccoli is a green plant from the Brassicaceae family whose flower and stalks are consumed as a vegetable.14-Feb-2020

Is broccoli a flower or leaves?

Edible broccoli florets (Brassica oleracea, variety italica). Broccoli is a fast-growing annual plant that grows 60–90 cm (24–35 inches) tall. Upright and branching with leathery leaves, broccoli bears dense green clusters of flower buds at the ends of the central axis and the branches.

Is avocado fruit or veg?

Avocados 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.01-Jun-2018

What fruits are not really fruits?

Avocadoes, string beans, squash, eggplant, green pepper and okra are all technically fruits, Litt says. On the other hand, rhubarb is not a fruit.21-Jul-2008

What type of fruit is broccoli?

By those standards, seedy outgrowths such as apples, squash and, yes, tomatoes are all fruits, while roots such as beets, potatoes and turnips, leaves such as spinach, kale and lettuce, and stems such as celery and broccoli are all vegetables.26-Jan-2022

Is broccoli a leafy vegetable?

Kale, mustard greens, collard greens, cabbage and broccoli are cruciferous leafy greens. Cruciferous vegetables are high in nutrients and contain glucosinolates, which inhibit the growth of certain cancers.

Is broccoli a plant or vegetable?

Broccoli (Brassica oleracea var. italica) is an edible green plant in the cabbage family (family Brassicaceae, genus Brassica) whose large flowering head, stalk and small associated leaves are eaten as a vegetable.

Is broccoli considered a tree?

Broccoli has large flower heads, usually green in color, arranged in a tree-like structure branching out from a thick, edible stalk. In our household, broccoli is lovingly called “trees.” The mass of flower heads is surrounded by leaves.

Is broccoli an edible flower?

The tender stems, leaves, buds, and flowers of the broccoli plant are all edible.

A Brief History of The Broccoli

Broccoli is a green plant comprising the stem, flower buds, and leaves. Initially, grew in the Mediterranean and later spread to England, American, and the rest of the world.

Is Broccoli a Fruit, Flower, or Vegetable?

As noted earlier in our discussion, the debate is ongoing, but there seems to be some consensus on the classification or categorization of the broccoli plant.

Is Broccoli a Fruit or Vegetable?

Broccoli is a vegetable and falls under the classification of what is known as flower head vegetables. These are vegetables that look like flowers with thick stems. The heads only look like flowers as they actually do flower at a later stage.

What Makes a Fruit?

To build context, let’s look at what actually constitutes a fruit. There are two schools of thought which govern this classification. The first of these is the culinary definition.

What Makes a Vegetable?

So, what then is a vegetable? Once again, we will talk about the culinary definition of a vegetable which classifies them as a savoury plant food.

Broccoli: A Fruit or a Vegetable?

Broccoli is sometimes referred to as a flower head vegetable in some corners. This is because it has the appearance of a flower. This is because it has multiple thick stems with what look like flowers at the end.

Concluding Thoughts

Now that you are armed with this information, you can throw this in as the subject of a great dinner conversation. Your subject matter will be right in front of you. So, to conclude it all, broccoli is 100% a vegetable.

Is broccoli is a fruit?

If we consider broccoli as a fruit, we should first compare broccoli as a fruit. Usually we think that A fruit will be sweet like mango, jackfruit, litchi, banana, grape, apple, guava, white etc. We can eat it without cooking when ripe. Although gourd, pumpkin, shrimp, patol etc. are eaten as vegetables, in fact they are all fruits.

Is broccoli is a flower?

The genitals of flowering plants are called flowers. This is a modified form of bitup. We see many flowers like tulips, roses, acacias, hibiscus, Magnolia, Daisy. Most flowers have their own scent and beauty and all flowers are surrounded by petals But broccoli doesn’t have all this quality.

Is broccoli a vegetable?

Vegetables are usually grouped according to the portion of the plant that is eaten such as leaves (lettuce), stem (celery), roots (carrot), tubers (potato), bulbs (onion) and flowers (broccoli). Moreover we can say, The part of the tree which we can eat by cooking that is vegetable. I can’t eat broccoli raw. We eat broccoli as a curry or salad.

Nutritional value of broccoli

Every day we eat some vegetables but we don’t know much about its value of nutrition. It is because of this ignorance that we often neglect many vegetables, such as broccoli which looks like a cauliflower. We eat the tip of the broccoli and its buds as vegetables by cooking.

How can you eat Broccoli

When buying broccoli, look for fresh, hard buds and dark green which is best for eating. You can also eat soft data if you want. Data also contains nutrients. Broccoli can be cooked as well as salad and fried with meat. So you can eat broccoli in different ways.

Why is Broccoli not considered Fruit?

It is a well-known fact that broccoli is not a fruit. If it is true then why is broccoli not considered a fruit? The valid justification for this statement is that broccoli does not contain any seed. There are many ways to prove this factual statement.

Is Broccoli a Vegetable?

Vegetables are the parts of the plants we eat, either raw or cooked. Broccoli is an edible plant, And we eat mostly the stem and the head (commonly known as the broccoli).

Is Broccoli A Fruit?

Botanically speaking, a fruit is a structure of a plant that holds the seeds and pulp. But broccoli does not fall under this category. You won’t find any seed in a broccoli head. So, you can not call broccoli a fruit.

Other Common Plants That Are Also Flowers

Now broccoli is not the only flower that is edible, there are others too. Here are two more edible vegetables that you might not know are actually flowers.

Cauliflower

All cauliflowers are flowers really, but unlike broccoli, cauliflower doesn’t develop any actual flowers.

Artichoke

The artichoke, with its delicate flavor and appearance, is a vegetable that is loved the world over. But technically artichokes are flowers.

Nutritional Value of Broccoli

Broccoli is a flowering vegetable with high nutrition values. It is a great source of fiber, vitamin C, vitamin K, iron, and potassium.

Bolting in Broccoli

When broccoli gets too hot, it will bolt or start to flower. It is not the hot air temperature but hot soil that causes broccolis to bolt. So the best way you can delay the bolting in broccoli is by keeping the soil temperature relatively cooler.

Etymology

The word broccoli comes from the Italian plural of broccolo, which means "the flowering crest of a cabbage ", and is the diminutive form of brocco, meaning "small nail" or "sprout".

History

Broccoli resulted from breeding of landrace Brassica crops in the northern Mediterranean starting in about the sixth century BCE. Broccoli has its origins in primitive cultivars grown in the Roman Empire and was most likely improved via artificial selection in the southern Italian Peninsula or in Sicily.

Other cultivar groups of Brassica oleracea

Other cultivar groups of Brassica oleracea include cabbage (Capitata Group), cauliflower and Romanesco broccoli (Botrytis Group), kale (Acephala Group), collard (Viridis Group), kohlrabi (Gongylodes Group), Brussels sprouts (Gemmifera Group), and kai-lan (Alboglabra Group).

Varieties

There are three commonly grown types of broccoli. The most familiar is Calabrese broccoli, often referred to simply as "broccoli", named after Calabria in Italy. It has large (10 to 20 cm) green heads and thick stalks. It is a cool-season annual crop. Sprouting broccoli (white or purple) has a larger number of heads with many thin stalks.

Cultivation

The majority of broccoli cultivars are cool-weather crops that do poorly in hot summer weather. Broccoli grows best when exposed to an average daily temperature between 18 and 23 °C (64 and 73 °F). When the cluster of flowers, also referred to as a "head" of broccoli, appear in the center of the plant, the cluster is generally green.

Production

In 2019, global production of broccoli (combined for production reports with cauliflowers) was 27 million tonnes, with China and India together accounting for 73% of the world total. Secondary producers, each having about one million tonnes or less annually, were the United States, Spain, and Mexico .

Nutrition

A 100 gram reference serving of raw broccoli provides 34 calories and is a rich source (20% or higher of the Daily Value, DV) of vitamin C (107% DV) and vitamin K (97% DV) (table).