Vegetables & Fruits

Vegetable generally refers to an edible part of a plant. The definition is traditional rather than scientific and is somewhat arbitrary and subjective. All parts of herbaceous plants eaten as food by humans, whole or in part, are normally considered vegetables. more...

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Mushrooms, though belonging to the biological kingdom Fungi, are also commonly considered vegetables. In general, vegetables are thought of as being savory, and not sweet, although there are many exceptions. Nuts, grains, herbs, spices and culinary fruits (see below) are normally not considered vegetables.

Fruit, vegetable

Since “vegetable� is not a botanical term, there is no contradiction in referring to a plant part as a fruit while also being considered a vegetable. Given this general rule of thumb, vegetables can also include leaves (lettuce), stems (asparagus), roots (carrots), flowers (broccoli), bulbs (garlic), seeds (peas and beans) and botanical fruits such as cucumbers, squash, pumpkins, and capsicums (bell peppers). Botanically, fruits are reproductive organs (ripened ovaries containing one or many seeds), while vegetables are vegetative organs which sustain the plant.

The question "is it a fruit, or is it a vegetable?" has even found its way into the United States Supreme Court, which ruled unanimously in Nix v. Hedden, 1893, that a tomato is a vegetable for the purposes of 1883 Tariff Act, although botanically, a tomato is a fruit.

Commercial production of vegetables is a branch of horticulture called olericulture.

Etymology

Vegetable is also used as a literary term for any plant: vegetable matter, vegetable kingdom. It comes from Latin vegetabilis (animated) and from vegetare (enliven), which is derived from vegetus (active), in reference to the process of a plant growing. This in turn derives from the Proto-Indo-European base *weg- or *wog-, which is also the source of the English wake, meaning "not sleep". The word vegetable was first recorded in print in English in the 14th century. The meaning of "plant grown for food" was not established until the 18th century.

In the diet

Vegetables are eaten in a variety of ways as part of main meals and as snacks. The nutritional content of vegetables varies considerably, though generally they contain a small proportion of protein and fat, and a relatively high proportion of vitamins, provitamins, dietary minerals, fiber and carbohydrates. Many vegetables also contain phytochemicals which may have antioxidant, antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral, anticarcinogenic properties.

Read more at Wikipedia.org