水果與蔬菜是怎樣劃分的？

02-26

早就有人回答過這個問題了What Are the Differences Between Fruits and Vegetables?

Simply put, a fruit is the
ovary of a plant, which means that it may contain seeds, while a vegetable is a
plant part, which does not contain seeds, although some vegetables may be used
in plant reproduction.

Some examples of fruits
include well-known specimens like apricots, cherries, blueberries, and apples, but tomatoes, pumpkins, cucumbers, and zucchini are
also considered to be fruits botanically, even though many people refer to
these fruits as 「vegetables」 because they are savory, rather than sweet. This
is the result of convenience labeling used in the grocery industry, where
fruits and vegetables are differentiated on the basis of whether they are sweet
or savory, rather than with the use of any firm botanical criteria.

A vegetable, on the other hand, is simply a plant part like a
flower, stem, root, or leaf. Broccoli, for example is a vegetable which
appears in the form of a flower, while celery is
a stalkvegetable, and celeriac is
a root vegetable. Vegetables like
potatoes are technically tubers, not roots, meaning that they are specially
designed plant structures which store nutrients for
the parent plant; tubers are also capable of budding into new plants. Some
examples of leaf vegetables include spinach, cabbage, and lettuce.

簡單翻譯一下，大意是水果是植物的子房，它可能包裹種子在中間，蔬菜是植物的器官不包含種子，不過蔬菜也可用於植物繁殖。很多人會把西紅柿、南瓜、黃瓜、西葫蘆當做蔬菜，但實際上它們屬於水果。不能用味道來判別蔬菜和水果。蔬菜屬於植物的器官，比如花（西蘭花）、莖（芹菜）、根（塊根芹）。

傳授一種瞬間上手的方法（毫無科學可言，只是自己用）：大部分人敢放在火鍋里煮的，就是蔬菜，反之則是水果。（所以我的世界觀了，番茄是蔬菜，小番茄是水果）

「任何可食用、不包括種子的植物部分都是蔬菜，可以是根部（胡蘿蔔）、塊莖（土豆）、莖幹（蘆筍）、葉子（捲心菜）、葉柄（芹菜）、花莖和花苞（花椰菜）。」——水果獵人 (豆瓣)

所以據此而言，小麥、大豆、玉米這些穀類也應被歸入水果一類，而西紅柿、南瓜、茄子這種被歸入蔬菜的食物也其實應該是水果才對。