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Is A Pumpkin A Fruit Or A Vegetable? Here's The Truth

Pumpkins are practically synonymous with fall. They are in yards, decorations at the store and even spiced up in your lattes. But when a pumpkin can be in a sweet dessert like a pie and salted up to be a savory dish (think pumpkin ravioli), it’s hard to decipher if it’s a fruit or a vegetable. It might not be your first guess, but...a pumpkin is a fruit.

Let that sink in for a bit.

Yes, a pumpkin is a fruit. You may be asking why? How? When? Well, the answer has to do with science. Think about the fruits you know and love: strawberries, apples, cantaloupe. In the growing process, they all have one thing in common. They are a product of the flowering plant, the ovaries, and they have seeds inside. Cut open any fruit, pumpkin included, and you will see the seeds. If you want your mind blown a little more, cucumbers, peppers, olives, tomatoes and avocados also fall into this category.

We tend to place pumpkin, and some other fruits, in the vegetable category because the most common varieties (your jack o'lantern) aren’t sweet. But there are 30 different varieties of pumpkins out there—some sweet, some not so much.

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Vegetables, on the other hand, are the flowers, bulbs, leaves and stems of a plant and won’t contain the seeds. Think Brussels sprouts, lettuce, celery, and garlic.

Whether you’re sweetening it up with some sugar and making it into a cheesecake, twirling it into a scrumptious and glossy carbonara or roasting the seeds into an easy snack, pumpkin is a versatile piece of produce, so don’t knock it because it’s a fruit.

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