If there is one thing that confuses people a lot is how to differentiate between a fruit and a vegetable. These two are generally quite important for our nutrition. A banana is particularly nutritious to us. You probably like to consume bananas but do you know whether it is a fruit or vegetable?
So, is a banana a fruit or a vegetable? And what type of fruit is a banana?
Fruit is a soft, edible, and pulpy product of a flowering plant that contains seeds and is typically sour, sweet, or bitter. Going by this definition and scientifically bananas are fruits.
Although many people think bananas are vegetables because they lack seeds, they have seeds although reduced in size. So, a banana is a fruit even though it is botanically a berry.
If you look carefully inside a banana, you will see dark little specs. Those are the banana seeds.
You know berries are fruits. A banana is classified as a type of berry.
Banana as a berry
Berries are fleshy fruits composed of seeds that grow from a single ovary. They are typically brightly colored, sweet, and or sour. A banana fruit though with sterile seeds qualifies as a berry because of the presence of these three components and or layers;
- Exocarp – an outer layer of the fruit.
- Mesocarp – the middle and fleshy layer.
- Endocarp – the tiny observable specs which are in essence seeds to the plant
It is no doubt that bananas fall under this category because of the presence of several seeds embedded in their mesocarp. By the virtue of being a berry, a banana automatically becomes a fruit and not a vegetable.
Why Is a Banana Not a Vegetable?
A vegetable is typically an herbaceous plant whose stems, leaves, tubers fruit, or flowers are used as seeds. Herbaceous means that the plant lacks a woody stem above the surface level. Herbaceous plants have soft and flexible stems which are green and above the ground.
All the characteristics above are missing in a banana tree, which grows to common heights of 10 – 20 feet above the ground.
To sum up, bananas meet the scientific requirements of a berry, therefore strongly a fruit and not a vegetable. Now you have the answer to “is a banana a fruit or a vegetable?”