11 Fruits Often Mistaken For Vegetables

One of the – botanically speaking – most nonsensical differences in biology is probably the one between fruits and vegetables. We have our common conceptions of what is a fruit and what is a vegetable, but for some reason they often don’t really match what science is saying about it. Are scientists wrong? Are we wrong? I’ll leave you to decide.

Here are a couple of fruits mistaken for vegetables and vice versa. Because being wrong goes both ways, I guess.

1. Olives

This is an easy one, right? Olives are obviously a vegetable. Well, they’re not. Scientifically speaking – which doesn’t always make as much sense as scientists think – olives are a fruit. They’re too bitter to be eaten raw, but if you make them a bit salty they become the olives we all love and appreciate.

2. Eggplant

Eggplant, much like olives, has seeds inside of the plant. As far as scientists are concerned, that means that eggplants are a fruit, despite neither eggs nor plants qualifying as such. Basically, at this point, you can already tell that all vegetables with seeds inside of the plant are actually fruits. I don’t like it either, but that’s how it goes.

3. Green Beans

Surely this is a vegetable and nothing else but a vegetable! Well, you’re wrong. Speaking in botanical terms, green beans are in fact very much a fruit and not a vegetable. They grow on a plant guys, that’s literally all it takes. Well, kind of.

4. Bell Peppers

If someone ever tells you there’s no such thing as spicy fruit, you can now prove them wrong instantly. Bell peppers are sweet fruit by nature, and their sweetness is in fact determined by the color they have. The red are the sweetest and the green are the most bitter, with all other colors hanging somewhere in between.