Tomato-Fruit or Vegetable?

19 Tomato 一 Fruit or Vegetable? Tomatoes. Soft and red. Sweet and juicy. They are one of the world's oldest foods. If you like pizza, you enjoy tomatoes. If you like a little ketchup with your french fries, you love tomatoes. Tomatoes were discovered by the Indians of South America, thousands of years ago. The first tomatoes were very small. By the time the Europeans brought them to Europe in the 1500s, they were larger. They looked more like the tomatoes we eat today. The history of tomatoes is an interesting one. When they first arrived in Italy, they were known as “ love apples" . Italians believed that if you ate a tomato, you would easily fall in love. In the United States, people believed that tomatoes were poisonous, and that you would die immediately upon eating one. It wasn't easy to persuade people otherwise.

That is, until 1820, when Robert Johnson decided to prove people wrong. He announced that he would publicly eat one bushel of tomatoes-about 50. A huge crowd showed up to watch. They were sure that Mr. Johnson was going to die. Of course, he survived. And the tomato went on to gain a big place in the American diet. In the beginning, people argued whether tomatoes were a fruit or a vegetable. From a purely scientific point of view, they are a fruit. A fruit is the ripened ovary of any plant that makes seeds. However, this didn't stop most people from calling tomatoes a vegetable. They reasoned that tomatoes are eaten with the main meal-just like vegetables. Theyare not eaten as dessert, like other fruits such as apples or bananas. Therefore, they thought the tomato must surely be a vegetable. Fruit or vegetable, tomatoes have survived a long time. They are not likely to disappear any time soon. They are just too good to cat!