9 fun facts about fruit and vegetables to teach your kids
Our main focus as parents is to get our kids eating the good stuff – encouraging them to eat enough fruit and vegetables to thrive and grow into happy and healthy individuals.
Whilst the taste of broccoli and tomatoes might not be favourites at first, there are some pretty quirky things to know about fruit and veg that might make trying them a little more enjoyable after all…
1. Tomatoes are a fruit
And they are the most popular fruit in the whole world!
The confusion about whether it was a fruit or a vegetable arose after the 1890s when the US Supreme Court named them a vegetable for tax reasons.
2. Strawberries are technically not a berry
Weird but true!
Berries by definition have their seeds on the inside, whilst strawberries hold their 200 seeds on the outside.
The strawberry plant produces a fleshy ‘false fruit’, also known as a ‘pseudocarp’ from its flower. Although essentially all you need to know is, they are still insanely delicious.
3. A pomegranate can hold up to 1000 seeds!
Whilst they are larger than a strawberry, an average sized pomegranate can contain anywhere between 600-1400 seeds or ‘arils’.
4. Potatoes were the first vegetable to be grown in space
October 1995, NASA and a university in the US collaborated to help grow the ever first veggie in space – a potato!
5. Not all oranges are orange
In subtropical regions, like Brazil, where they grow some types of oranges, the temperature isn’t cold enough for the skin to turn orange.
This means the orange could stay green or yellow, even when it’s ripe!
6. Cranberries can bounce
When they’re ripe, they bounce! Give it a go yourself…
7. The part of broccoli that you eat is actually flowers which haven’t opened yet
And it’s also part of the cabbage family.
8. Pumpkins and cucumber are also classed as a fruit, not a vegetable!
Not to mention olives, avocado, aubergine and capsicum; which are all also fruits!
From a botanist's perspective...
Fruit = The structure that holds the seeds of a flowering plant
Vegetables = the edible parts plants e.g. leaves, stems, roots, flowers and tubers.
However, from a culinary perspective we refer to pumpkins, cucumber, aubergine and capsicum as vegetables, because they are less sweet and not used in often in desserts.
9. Durian is the smelliest fruit in the world
The fruit grows on the Durio tree and grows in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. Apparently it smells of rotten eggs, sweaty socks or even garbage.
Fancy trying that one?
