As everyone knows, anything that has a seed is a fruit. Strawberries, raspberries, mangos, oranges, and bananas are all fruits. Even Though there is a controversy between a few foods we eat…what if not all fruits were fruits? There are millions of different types of fruits such as drupes consisting of peaches and cherries, melons like watermelon and cantaloupe, berries such as blueberries and kiwi, and even tropical fruits like mangoes. There are hundreds of different fruit groups and the fruits you might think you know will turn out to be something different than you expected. Even though they are all classified differently in science, culinary arts specify them as how most people view them.

Drupe is a type of fruit that has a soft, fleshy outside skin with a hard seed in the center called a pit. A type of drupe fruit originates from a single ovary from one flower, unlike certain berries. Fruits that are considered to be drupes are peaches, plums, cherries, and even foods that you would never expect. Pecans and almonds. Both pecans and almonds are considered to be drupe fruit. According to Feast and Field, “drupes are a fleshy fruit with a hard, dry seed inside. Cashews, almonds, and pecans are drupes” (www.feastandfield.net). They’re treated as drupes because they all come with fruits but we tend to eat the seed and not the fruity part.

Some of the fruit we call ‘berries’ might not actually be seen as a berry scientifically. Now, obviously, not everyone knows the millions of different types of berries, but there are things that we as humans think of as berries that aren’t actually seen as them. Take a strawberry. It has seeds, doesn’t it? It came from a plant and has small yellow seeds so it must be a berry. Right? Wrong. Strawberries and raspberries are not actually berries. Strawberries are still a fruit but it is a “multiple fruit which consists of tiny individual fruits embedded in a fleshy receptacle” which is most commonly called a “false fruit” (www.carnegiemuseums.org). Strawberries and raspberries both come from a plant that has one flower, just like other berries, but their flower releases more than one ovary to the fruit. The fruits are “derived from one flower with more than one ovary” (www.thedailymeal.com).

Clearly, avocados and tomatoes are the most controversial foods in the world. The question “is it a fruit or is it a vegetable?” Science has the answer to this question about those fruits and so many more. Noticeably both of the foods have seeds in them making people say that they should be considered a fruit. Most people find this wrong because it’s only used with vegetables but the people who say it’s a fruit…they’re right. Scientifically, avocados are categorized as a berry and not a vegetable. Avocados are a fruit (a berry to be exact) due to their, “seed surrounded by […] three layers, one of which is a fleshy edible layer, which qualifies as a fruit” according to the website Jar of lemons. As for tomatoes, it’s understandable how people would classify tomatoes as vegetables when we use them mainly in salad, pizza, and pasta. We don’t normally ever see tomatoes being paired with grapes or blueberries so it makes sense why people call them vegetables.  Tomatoes are, scientifically, a berry. According to eufic.org, they are “classified as a fruit because they contain seeds and grow from the flower of the […] plant” (www.eufic.org).

Finally, the last strange fruit, bananas. Now, the way scientists classify the different types and groups of fruits is beyond confusing, but something that is just as confusing is that bananas are classified as berries. Just like blueberries, tomatoes, and grapes, bananas are berries due to the fact that they originate from a flower (the tree they are grown on) that only produces one ovary from the flower. We all knew that bananas were fruits but who would have thought that they could be a berry? In simpler terms, a fruit is a berry if it consists of multiple seeds (nearly hundreds) and is derived from a plant/flower that only produces a singular ovary to help it grow. Not all berries are small ones you can find in a little bush on the corner of a forest. Technically, bananas are tropical berries adding to the fact that they grow in tropical locations all around the world.

Overall, no one is really able to tell what fruit is what and which group it belongs to. The possibility of an everyday food people think nothing of, such as almonds and pecans, will become a fruit the next time it’s looked up. Remember, it’s a berry if it has one ovary.