this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2025
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People putting things into salads need to chill out.
Tomatoes, cucumbers, mushrooms, salt, pepper, bacon, eggs, dressing, croutons, cheese, olives, olive oil, vinegar, peppers, salsa, chicken, steak, tortilla chips, limes, chow mien noodles, etc. are all things one might put in a salad that aren’t vegetables. You don’t have to label everything vegetables just because there’s some lettuce in there.
What exactly is a vegetable, by your definition?
As others point out, vegetable is a culinary term; fruit is a botanical and culinary term.
Any edible non-fruit part of a plant. I’ll also make exceptions for nonstandard fruits like pods and kernels.
Why are fruit special though? Leaves and roots are also part of a plant, so why would a tomato not be a vegetable, but lettuce (leaf) and carrot (root) get exemptions?
Because we all collectively decided fruit were their own thing? They’re the juicy snack plants give away to trick animals into spreading their seeds.
I’m not sure why the ancient chefs decided to be silly. They should have just called it all “plants” and be done with it.