Inquiring minds might want to know, is the orange orb popular for Halloween and fall decorations a fruit or vegetable? The answer may surprise you. A pumpkin is, in fact, a fruit.
According to expert Joe Masabni, Ph.D., Texas A&M Agri Life Extension Service vegetable specialist in the Texas A&M Department of Horticultural Sciences said scientifically speaking, pumpkins are a fruit because anything that starts from a single flower is classified botanically as a “simple fruit.”
Do you consider a pumpkin a fruit or a vegetable?
Usually, fruits and vegetables have been named according to how they are consumed. How people eat them versus how people see them is often different.
“We see them as to whether we eat them as a dessert, salad or as part of a meal,” Masabni said.
Consider a cucumber or tomato. People don’t typically eat them as desserts, he said. They eat them in a salad or cooked in a meal, so they are associated with vegetables, even though they are really fruit.
“The pumpkin is a tricky one though,” he said, “because some people make soups or stews from pumpkins, which is a meal, while others make pies, which is a dessert. So that can lead to confusion.”
What is the difference between a fruit and a vegetable?
The difference between a fruit and a vegetable is established in how they grow.
“All plants start from seedlings,” Masabni said. “Let’s take the example of lettuce as a vegetable. It makes more and more leaves, and then you harvest it and eat those leaves. If you let it go even longer, it will eventually make a flower stalk and make seeds for next year’s crop.”
A pumpkin starts the same; however, their flowers become the pumpkin we eat.
“A pumpkin starts with a small plant and a few leaves, and as the leaves grow and more branches develop, flowers will start to bloom on the plant,” he said. “Those flowers then need to be pollinated by bees or other pollinators. Once that flower is pollinated, it develops into a fruit that we consume. So ultimately, fruit relies on pollination of the flower to become the thing we eat.”
