Me and the kid were watching tv this morning, when a little educational insert about healthy food came on. It was a walking, talking sweetcorn called Colonel Cob, who went on to explain (wearing combats and medals) how sweetcorn is a marvellously healthy thing to eat. During his spiel, he announced that sweetcorn is a vegetable. But, I think sweetcorn is fruit because it is the seeds of the corn plant. And my husband thinks that because it really is the seeds that get eaten, rather than being a fleshy and good tasting substance wrapped around the seeds, that it's technically a nut. So, what do you think? Is corn on the cob a vegetable (as the animated yellow militarised cob on the telly would have us believe), a fruit, or a nut?

Vegetable

(singing) Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't.... Anyone remember that jingle?

Grain? If you dry it and grind it up, it makes a nice flour or porridge -- like oatmeal and wheat.

Its a vegetable and there is a very simple way in which to tell. 1. A Fruit contains the seeds of a plant 2. A Vegetable usually doesn't have seeds and is usually a plant all to itself. (with the exception of peas & beans but they are a type of pulse). 3. A nut, is the seed of a plant.

Uh, Cep? Sweet corn, we eat the seeds and only the seeds. And for veggies with seeds we eat, add tomatoes and cucumbers. Sweet corn is taxed as a vegetable and eaten as a vegetable. Except my kids like it, so I guess it can't be one.

This is the basis of my confusion. A fruit is the fruiting body of a plant. Usually with nice stuff wrapped around the seeds because they are actually meant to be eaten. So tomatoes would be fruit. A vegetable is plant matter, such as cabbage (leaves) or turnips (roots). A nut is the seed itself, generally defined as being in a hard shell. So, I hadn't thought of grain being a separate item but it fits perfectly well. And peas and beans don't fit the veggie definition, nor the fruit either. So are pulses separate from vegetables? And then, there are bananas. Because the edible kind we get in the shops doesn't have a seed in it, so what are they?

Actually, bananas do have seeds -- tiny things down at the bottom. Maybe some farther up. Very very tiny black specs.

I thought the kind we get in the shops was seedless though, and all the other kinds that we don't eat have seeds in?

Originally posted by CricketBeautiful Uh, Cep? Sweet corn, we eat the seeds and only the seeds. And for veggies with seeds we eat, add tomatoes and cucumbers. Sweet corn is taxed as a vegetable and eaten as a vegetable. Except my kids like it, so I guess it can't be one.

Tomatoes are a fruit.

Meaning of VEGETABLE Definition: [list] [*] edible seeds or roots or stems or leaves or bulbs or tubers or nonsweet fruits of any of numerous herbaceous plant [*] any of various herbaceous plants cultivated for an edible part such as the fruit or the root of the beet or the leaf of spinach or the seeds of bean plants or the flower buds of broccoli or cauliflower [*] of the nature of or characteristic of or derived from plants; "decaying vegetable matter" [/list]

Meaning of FRUIT Definition: [list] [*] the ripened reproductive body of a seed plant [*] fruit, as of trees and plants [/list]

Meaning of NUT Definition: [list] [*] usually large hard-shelled seed [/list]

Aha - your dictionary has more specific definitons than mine. Mine didn't include fruit as a definition of vegetable

Well at least that resolved the issue hehe.

You mean it resolved the issue of us all being nuts?

And I walk into this conversation...I should stay away longer... Katse

No! *pouncetackles Katse to the floor* your not getting away that easily!

Aww Katse, Why would you want to leave us?

Because we are all nuts?

Heh Katse is as nuts as the rest of us so thats no excuse.

*Ashke dusts off video camera and starts recording* So does that mean popcorn is a vegetable? All I know is we used sweetcorn as pig food when I lived on a farm. *shrugs* To each his own I guess.