AgriLife Extension horticulturist explains what sets fruits and vegetables apart.
Every fall, pumpkins steal the spotlight with multiple purposes: as decorations, for soups and in pies. But here’s a fun fact backed by science: this seasonal favorite is actually a fruit.
Joe Masabni, Ph.D., Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service vegetable specialist and professor in the Texas A&M Department of Horticultural Sciences, said pumpkins are scientifically classified as fruits because of how they grow. Anything that starts from a flower is classified botanically as a fruit.
Why do people mistake pumpkins for vegetables?
People typically consider something as either a fruit or a vegetable based on how they eat it rather than how it grows.
“We see them as to whether we eat them as a dessert, salad or as part of a meal,” Masabni said.
For example, consider cucumbers or tomatoes. People typically don’t eat them as desserts, he said. They often eat cucumbers and tomatoes in salads or cooked meals, so they may think of them as vegetables, even though they’re fruits.
“The pumpkin is a tricky one, though,” he said, “because some people make soups or stews from pumpkins, which is a meal, while others make pies, which is a dessert. So that can lead to confusion.”
What’s the difference between a fruit and a vegetable?
The difference between a fruit and a vegetable lies in whether the produce starts as a flower.
“All plants start from a seed,” Masabni said. “Let’s take the example of lettuce as a vegetable. It makes more and more leaves, and then you harvest them and eat those leaves. If you let it go even longer, it will eventually make a flower stalk and make seeds that we harvest and store for next year’s crop.”
A pumpkin plant starts the same. However, its flowers eventually turn into the fruit we eat – in this case, the pumpkin itself.
“A pumpkin starts as a small plant with a few leaves, and as the leaves grow and more branches develop, flowers will start to bloom on the plant,” he said. “Those flowers then need to be pollinated by bees or other pollinators. Once a flower is pollinated, it develops into a fruit that we consume. So ultimately, fruit relies on pollination of the flower to become the thing we eat.”
What other ‘vegetables’ are actually fruits?
Besides pumpkins, some other fruits that are typically confused with vegetables are:
- Cucumbers
- Tomatoes
- Eggplants
- Corn
- Zucchini
- Okra
- String beans
- Squash
- Peppers
So, does it matter?
Maybe not at the dinner table, but it’s a fun fact to share at your next fall gathering.
“The fruit and vegetable debate is a fun one that hangs on the technical, scientific view of these plants that we consume,” Masabni said. “At the end of the day, we want to inform people, but we also want them to enjoy these plants as gardeners and at the dinner table.”
