dontletthemfoolyou2

Part 2 of the vegetable rabbit hole 😂

In 1893, the U.S. Supreme Court had to decide whether a tomato was legally a fruit or a vegetable because the Tariff Act of 1883 taxed imported vegetables but not fruits.

Botanically? Fruit.
For the purpose of the law? Vegetable.

And somehow a tomato lawsuit ended up becoming one of the best examples of how science, language, culture, and even law can classify the exact same thing differently.

This is why I love rabbit holes like this. The deeper you go, the less it’s really about vegetables and the more it becomes a story about how humans create categories to make sense of the world. 😂

Apparently I made it all the way to adulthood without realizing that “vegetable” is not actually a botanical classification 😂

What started as me reading an old botany book from the 1800s turned into a full rabbit hole about how we classify food, where the word “vegetable” even came from, and why carrots, broccoli, tomatoes, peas, spinach, and cucumbers are all being shoved into one category even though botanically they are completely different plant structures.

And yes… in 1893 this argument literally made it to the U.S. Supreme Court.

That’s where Part 2 starts. 😂 follow for more.

Don’t judge me, idk why I never thought of this