QBN and Watermelon
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Watermelon Fruit or Vegetable?
No matter which way you slice it, a watermelon is a vegetable! [drum role please... ] And it's a fruit! It's both! Depending on who defines fruit or vegetable.How awesome is that! You can eat watermelon and get a serving of your daily supply of vegetables!
If watermelon is a vegtable or a fruit has been debated as long as the terms fruit and vegetable have been around. According to scientific definitions a watermelon is both a fruit and a vegetable. Here's why.
Watermelon is a FruitLike the pepper, tomato, and pumpkin, watermelon is botanically and scientifically a fruit. According to Webster’s dictionary and to scientists, a fruit is the ripened ovary (pistil) of a seed plant and its contents which includes the seeds. A fruid is the bud, flower, seed containing organ, or just the seed itself (Lawrence, "Taxonomy of Vascular Plants"). Site note: Tomatoes, beans, corn, artichokes, and peanuts are fruit. A watermelon is a large oblong roundish fruit. Consumers use watermelon primarily as a fruit because of its sweet flavor and refreshing qualities.
Watermelon is a Vegetable
According to Webster’s dictionary a vegetable is anything made or obtained from plants (2004). That is a pretty broad definition which would mean that all fruits are also vegetables. So let's throw out Websters. According to scientists a vegetable is the stem, leaf, or root (Lawrence, "Taxonomy of Vascular Plants"). Lettuce, celery, and carrots are vegetables. Interesting side note: apples are both because what is eaten is a swollen part of the stem. The core with the seeds is the fruit.According to the USDA since Watermelon is planted from seeds or seedlings, harvested, and then cleared from the field like other vegetables. AND, since watermelon is grown as a vegetable crop using vegetable production systems, watermelon is considered a vegetable (Wolford, 2004). According to the USDA, watermelon is a vegetable just like cucumbers, pumpkins and squash.
There is a sneaky trick to this watermelon is a vegetable thing. The watermelon as a vegetable has a legal impact on taxes that foriegn importers pay to the United States. It all goes back to 1887 and a tomato.
In 1887, U.S. tarriff laws taxed imported vegetables and not fruit. We imported a lot of tomatoes back then and the dispute over the tomato (fruit or vegtable) went all the way to the United States Supreme Court in 1893. The US Supreme Court decided that for tax purposes the tomato is a vegetable because of how it is used. Since tomatoes are used at dinner and not desert, they would be a vegetable. (Nix v. Hedden). According to botanists (scientists who study plants) cucumbers, pumpkins, and squash are all fruits too) but the USDA calls them vegetables anyway.
So, if you are a scientific type, watermelon is a fruit. If you work for the government and want to help fund government then watermelon is a vegetable.
How is it used as a fruit or vegetableIn the United States, most of us use watermelon as a fruit. We slice it, dice it, make it into balls. We put it in fruit salad, we eat it as desert, we make fruity drinks out of it, we even make fruity alcholic frozen drinks out of it. Sometimes we treat it as a vegetable, we make watermelon rind pickles out of it. Other countries and nationalities treat watermelon like a vegetable more often. The entire watermelon is edible even the rind. In the orient all parts of the watermelon are stir-fried, stewed and pickled. In Russia, pickled watermelon rind is very popular and widespread.