Quote:
Originally Posted by Solitaire1
How do foods get categorized into classes, which technically, they don't exist? As an example, tomatoes are commonly treated as vegetables, but they are actually fruits. In the same way, cashews are treated as nuts although they aren't actually nuts.
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It's because "Vegetable" is a strictly culinary classification, not a botanical one. Furthermore "fruit" has two completely different definitions depending on whether you are talking about food or plants:
Vegetable - an edible plant which is savory/not sweet.
Fruit (culinary) - an edible plant that is sweet.
Fruit (botanical) - a seed-bearing organ.
The two different definitions of fruit also mean that you have things which qualify as fruit in the culinary sense but not the botanical one. (Rhubarb)
Nut in common parlance is used to refer to anything with a hard outer shell.