this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2025
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Microblog Memes

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[–] NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 43 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Vegetables aren’t actually a thing though. Just a bunch of things we grouped because we like eating them.

[–] Couldbealeotard@lemmy.world 12 points 2 days ago (3 children)

There's no such thing as a fish

[–] nilclass@discuss.tchncs.de 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)

True. They are just water based government drones, to keep tabs on the mermaid population

[–] Couldbealeotard@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

If there's even a 1% chance Jason Momoa could go rouge we should treat it as an absolute certainty.

[–] Zwiebel@feddit.org 11 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Yes there is. Taxonomists aren't the only people who give meaning to words

[–] grissino@lemmy.world 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

"Taxonomists aren't the only people who give meaning to words"

Eloquently put! You've expressed a feeling that I have had for a while now and couldn't quite put into the appropriate words! Thanks 🙏🏼

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[–] Couldbealeotard@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Ok. I'm a fish.

[–] MothmanDelorian@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago (8 children)

*within taxonomy, I think most people can conceive of a fish in colloquial terms.

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[–] bss03@infosec.pub 2 points 2 days ago
[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 30 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Botanically is there such thing as a "vegetable"?

[–] sunbytes@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago
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[–] ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 21 points 2 days ago (2 children)

"Fruit" within culinary is usually applied to "sweeter" forms of fruits, and the more savory forms usually get called "vegetable" instead regardless of being botanically called fruits or not.

[–] sunflowercowboy@feddit.org 8 points 2 days ago

Tomatoes are sweet

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 5 points 2 days ago

Nix v. Hedden, 149 U.S. 304 (1893), is a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States in which the Court unanimously held that tomatoes should be classified as vegetables rather than fruits for purposes of tariffs, imports and customs. Justice Horace Gray delivered the opinion of the Court in holding that the Tariff Act of 1883 used the ordinary meaning of the words "fruit" and "vegetable", instead of the technical botanical meaning.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nix_v._Hedden

Yeah, I genuinely don't see the problem here. There are much weirder classifications with regards to tariffs. (Note that I haven't been able to fact check this, is could be a popular urban legend.) Converse shoes have a felt lining that makes them considered slippers instead of shoes. The practice is called tariff engineering. (That page lists the Converse thing, so maybe it's actually true.)

[–] leadore@lemmy.world 10 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

Stupid meme. Many other countries also classify tomatoes in with vegetables for various commerce regulation and taxation purposes. That case was just capitalists trying to get out of paying tariffs by nitpicking the definition of a tomato

I hate these things where people twist reality just so they can make a cute "Americans are so dumb" meme. If you want to bash the US, there are plenty of relevant topics to choose from for criticism. Better yet, read a book once in a while instead of just scrolling the internet and grabbing random shit that's gone viral.

And BTW, what's a fruit or vegetable is not some objective Sacred Truth that science "discovered", it's that science came up with a system of categorizing plants that people deemed to be useful for the study of Botany, just as legislators came up with a slightly different classification useful for taxation, and regular people also classify them in a way that's useful for cooking purposes. This is not a situation where Science! is an almighty God. It's just ways of sorting things. "Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad."

[–] SatansMaggotyCumFart@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] jimjam5@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

This made me chuckle more than it should have

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[–] procrastitron@lemmy.world 93 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (4 children)

My stubborn position is that all fruits are vegetables.

Anything that comes from a plant (vegetation) is a vegetable.

EDIT: Reading up on the case, they apparently didn’t treat fruits and vegetables as disjoint sets but rather with fruits as a subset of vegetables. So far, so good…

HOWEVER, they also apparently ruled that tomatoes don’t count as a fruit because they aren’t eaten for dessert…

Wow… just… wow.

[–] NegativeInf@lemmy.world 64 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Fruit is a scientific term. Vegetable is a culinary term.

[–] JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee 82 points 3 days ago (7 children)

Fruit is also a culinary term that is not identical to its meaning as a scientific term

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[–] MyTurtleSwimsUpsideDown@fedia.io 27 points 3 days ago (30 children)

because they aren’t eaten for dessert

This sounds to me like a reasonable way to disqualify something as a culinary fruit.

Folks like to make a big hullabaloo about tomatoes being technically a fruit, but no one gives a second thought about referring to peppers, cucumbers, green beans, eggplant, avocado, pumpkins & other squash, or corn on-the-cob as vegetables even though they are all technically fruit.

And I was being picky there, because beans, peas, grains and nuts are all also technically fruit. Heck, lots of “nuts” like peanuts and cashews aren’t even really nuts.

Keep your taxonomy out of my kitchen:

  • Fruit are sweet.
  • Vegetables are not.
  • Grains make bread.
  • Herbs and spices add a lot of flavor with a little bit. Herbs are the green ones.
  • nuts are. They just are. Don’t think about it too hard.
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[–] dogsnest@lemmy.world 27 points 3 days ago (4 children)

As a former worker at a steel plant, I concur.

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[–] NoSpiritAnimal@lemmy.world 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Because Fruits were taxed higher than vegetables, so importers started listing them as a vegetable.

It's tax dodges all the way down.

[–] mugthol@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 day ago

I just looked it up and it was actually the opposite: vegetables were taxed and fruits were not. Then somebody argued that they shouldn't have to pay and the court decided that yes, botanically speaking tomatoes are fruit, but in their ordinary meaning (which is used in commerce and trade) they are a vegetable. And that a tomato is used and prepared like a vegetable so it should be classified as that.

[–] TempermentalAnomaly@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Just a list of items we normally think of as veggies, but actually fruit: cucumbers, squash, peppers, eggplants, avocados, pumpkins.

[–] Kacarott@aussie.zone 4 points 1 day ago

The real misconception is that people conflate culinary terms with biological terms.

Are actually fruit

No, they are culinary vegetables. They are also biological fruits. AFAIK "vegetable" does not even have meaning in biology

[–] JayObey711@lemmy.world 16 points 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (4 children)

It doesn't matter why are you roleplaying as a botanist if you don't see that culinary definitions and scientific classification are two separate things. One is really useless for the average person and the other is probably also a foreign concept to everyone having quirky discussions about whether cakes are hotdogs or smoothies, because they are the type of people to tweet a 60 page essay about why expecting neurodivergents people to cook their own meal should be considered a hate crime.

[–] MothmanDelorian@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Tomatoes don't belong in a fruit salad

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[–] Nougat@fedia.io 28 points 3 days ago

Botanical vs culinary. Different contexts; different definition per context. There is not a problem here.

[–] werefreeatlast@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Plus they make the national drink...ketchup.

[–] whoisearth@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

So is ketchup technically a jam?

[–] werefreeatlast@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

Yes according to the Dutch.

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 3 points 2 days ago

Fruits are a subset of vegetables.

[–] NikkiDimes@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

This leaves out the modern extension of this where pizza meets the requirements of a vegetable due to it containing 2 tablespoons of tomato paste as specified in the "Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act of 2012", previously the "Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010".

Thanks Obama

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