This little rant was posted on the Triple J Breakfast Show guestbook today for “tell it like it is Friday”:

I’d like to “tell it like it is” about people who go to great pains to point out that a tomato is a fruit. I know it is a fruit. If it developed from a flower its a fruit. But why single out the tomato? You never hear this conversation…

-what veggies are we having with dinner

-pumpkin

-I’m sorry but that’s a fruit

-zucchini?

-fruit

-eggplant?

-FRUIT

-how about peas?

-peas are removed from a pod that developed from a flower so… A FRUIT!!

What really shits me is when people who should know better (ie those with a science background) also single out the humble tomato for special treatment.

Either consider them as vegetables because they are savoury or call them ALL fruit which would be botanically correct — I don’t care! But stop wasting the earths precious oxygen and pretending you’re intellegent by pointing out a tomato is a fruit!!

—Tricia from Five Dock

Can’t argue with that.