Abstract
Vegetables and fruits have many similarities with respect to their compositions, methods of cultivation and harvesting, storage properties, and processing. In fact many vegetables may be considered fruits in the true botanical sense. Botanically, fruits are those portions of a plant that house seeds. Therefore tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant, peppers, okra, sweet corn, and other vegetables would be classified as fruits according to this definition. However, the important distinction between fruits and vegetables has come to be made on a usage basis: those plant items that are generally eaten with the main course of a meal are considered to be vegetables; those that commonly are eaten as dessert are considered fruits. This is the distinction made by food processors, certain marketing laws, and the consuming public, and this distinction will be followed in this discussion.
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© 1986 Springer Science+Business Media New York
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Potter, N.N. (1986). Vegetables and Fruits. In: Food Science. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7262-0_18
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7262-0_18
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