Tomatoes, Science and Halakha

Fruit, Vegetable, or Social Construct?

There’s a lot of ink spilled on conflicts between science and halakha, and there’s an analogy I use that I think clarifies a lot of these seeming contradictions, or at least separates the really challenging stuff from the superficially challenging stuff. I thought I’d write it up and publish it.

Is a tomato a fruit or a vegetable?

You’ve all been on the internet long enough to know the memes.

Supposedly, according to “science” (and I’ll explain the scare quotes in a second) tomato is a fruit, but we sort of pretend its a vegetable for the purposes of not ruining fruit salads, even as we allow philosophizing over the smoothie status of ketchup. In this view, there is a correct scientific view, “Tomatoes are a fruit”, and incorrect social definitions of tomatoes as vegetables.

But let’s talk a second about what we mean when we say “Science says Tomato is a Fruit”. Which science? And what criteria does that science use? Well, we’re talking botanically, ie, from the perspective of the study of plants. When you are studying plants, you want to be able to define each part of the plant in terms of what it does for the plant. This is a leaf, it does photosynthesis, this is pollen, it is plant sperm, etc etc. Within that, the fruit is defined as “, the female part of the plant that is pollinated and produces something containing seeds that can in turn produce new plants and continue that plant’s lifecycle.” A tomato is indeed, the part of the tomato plant that gets pollinated to become a thing that contains seeds that can in turn produce new plants that continue that plant’s lifecycle. Thus, from the perspective of botany, which is definitely a science, tomatoes are fruits. So, the thinking goes, if we take science seriously, we ought to define tomatoes as a fruit, fruit salads be damned.

But is that the only possible definition of a fruit? I’m not saying that the science of botany is illegitimate, far from it. But is its definition of “fruit” the only possible definition of that term. There are realms of human activity that have nothing to do with understanding the specifics of the plant’s lifecycle, and may define fruit with a different set of boxes to sort through. For instance, lets say that for thousands of years the culinary arts evolved a definition of “fruit” that was based on sugar content, based on the fact that most fruits are in fact sweet. Apples? Fruit. Grapes? Fruit. Lettuce? Vegetable. Now along comes a tomato, which sure, has sugar, but its more savory than sweet, and seems to make more sense in savory dishes than sweet dishes (like, say, a fruit salad). Do you necessarily need to throw out the term “fruit?”. No. Because your definition of “fruit” never had anything to do with botany whatsoever. It had to do merely with its culinary function. Fruits are sweet, vegetables are savory. Thus, tomato is a vegetable.

So , at the end of the day, is a Tomato, according to science, a fruit or a vegetable? Both, because the question is fundamentally flawed. “Science” is not a council of elders handing down definitions of words as sacred writ. Science¹, like any other realm of human activity, uses its vocabulary functionally, and your definition of a term is going to depend on what you want to accomplish with it. If you want to understand the functions of the different parts of a plant, calling a tomato a vegetable is not very helpful. If you want to make a fruit salad, calling a tomato a fruit is just incorrect.