Beets are vegetables. Technically, cucumbers are fruits. They're seedpods which grow on vines. Squash are fruits too. And tomatoes.

BUT, it is a convention in English to call fruits that are not particularly sweet, and which are eaten in savory cooking with other vegetables, "vegetables". Many words in English have two meanings, including this one. OTOH, we don't call sugary vegetables like beets and carrots "fruits" even though we sometimes use them in desserts, like carrot cake.

Fruits have seeds and grow on bushes, vines and trees.

Vegetables are leaves, roots, stems, etc., but not seed pods, and mostly grow in or coming out of the ground.

I once had a secretary ask me if a chocolate covered cherry was considered a fruit, LOL. It is, of course, although certainly not a serving of fruit.

As plllog noted, a cucumber is actually scientifically a fruit, although it's much more widely regarded as a vegetable here in the United States. The fact that it is fermented, or brined in vinegar doesn't change what it is, it's still a fruit/vegetable, just not a raw, fresh one.

If I marinate a steak, is it still a steak? How about potato salad, are those still potatoes? That pickled cucumber is still a cucumber.

Annie

Ask a vegetarian.

dcarch

My second thought was along the lines of what mumkin wrote. My first thought was along the lines of

Apologies! I misread the question and answered a different one than that which was asked!

Pickles don't really count in the "5-9 servings (cups) of fresh fruit and vegetables daily" recommended by the government. And in that number, the "fruits" are meant to be mostly vegetable-ish fruits like cucumbers, green beans, tomatoes and squash, rather than sweet fruits. But these things are flexible. A day of cucumber pickles, giardiniera, marinated mushrooms, brined tomatoes and canned baby corn, is better than no veg at all, but probably way too much salt, and too few vitamins. A cucumber pickle enlivening a salad of mixed dark leafy greens, fresh bell peppers, carrots and radishes, can't be bad. ;)

Pickled vegetables are still vegetables, but they do often have a fair amount of salt in them. Preserved or pickled fruit is still fruit - just with additional ingredients.

I think Reagan once claimed that ketchup is a vegetable, enough though tomatoes are technically fruit, as are chilies, but we eat them like vegetables. I might draw the line a beans and peas, if they are shelled, but I would consider green beans to be vegetables.

If you look up "vegetable" you will get a definition like "a plant or part of a plant used as food, typically as accompaniment to meat or fish, such as a cabbage, potato, carrot, or bean." The main thing is that it belongs to the vegetable kingdom and not the animal kingdom.

Here's another take on it:
<A more precise definition is "any plant part consumed for food that is not a fruit or seed, but including mature fruits that are eaten as part of a main meal".>

I don't include nuts and seeds as vegetables, but the green and fleshy part of a cucumber (after you remove the seeds) does has a lot of the qualities of other vegetables.

Sauerkraut is unquestionably a vegetable, and that is what I eat the most of pickled, although I used to eat more kimchee.

Unless you are in a seed or gardening forum, the broader definition of vegetable normally applies. I did take a botany class at university, but I leave technical definitions in the classroom. When grocery shopping, you typically find cucumbers and tomatoes with the vegetables - not with fruit. If you serve children zucchini or squash, you do not tell them to eat their fruit - or at least I would not.

Reagan said ketchup was a vegetable when talking about school lunch nutrition. Um. No. Nutritionally, ketchup is sugar. It does have some good for you trace elements--Heinz touts lycopene (for good reason) which also requires fats to be eaten with it--but while that may be good for you, it doesn't take the place of fresh vegetables.

I immediately thought of that video about 'chicken of the sea', 😂

All fruits and vegetables have nutritional value even after heavily processing. It just goes way way down after organic garden fresh picked, then stored for a bit, then quickly frozen, then processed home canned from garden fresh, then commercial tinned, salted/sugared, and then/frozen with preservatives. Breaded fried then frozen. A quick pickle from my garden is really just dressed as in a light salad dressing. Using all veg like beets, radish, onion, etc. quick pickled 2-12 hours I consider fresh. But not fresh picked off the garden vine.

Most veg will immediately start to deteriorate once picked. And some continue to ripen. Bananas and corn start to change immediately. Corn fresh ripe is like no other and bananas have a sweet spot before they sugar-up.

So no, a jarred shelf stable pickle is not a fresh vegetable. Or even close. It has gone through so much processing that most value is lost nutritionally. I tend to think of that product as a condiment. Makes other fresh foods taste good. Ketchup is a sugar heavy condiment. But then a jar of pickles as a snack is better than junk food. Satisfying but not fattening.

Fermentation goes into another stratosphere of good bacteria. Naturally fermented pickles hit another note of good food for ya. A better way of preserving a harvest for the winter months. Home canning is not that far off, just not as good as other methods. Fermentation and freezing.

Cucumber is not a pickle, ketchup is not a tomato. Condiments.

To be fair, I don't think it was President Reagan himself, but the agency under his administration that designated ketchup as a vegetable for school lunch purposes - USDA?

And this is reminding me of something Mel Brooks said long ago in an interview, about Raisinets being the perfect snack, since the raisins balance out the chocolate ☺️

Thank you all. Mumkin, I have no idea if she was asking as nutritional value or not. I first thought it was a joke!

Regards Chicken of the Sea... my niece, when she was very young, refused to eat ANY seafood. (She is like this to this day.) But she'd enjoyed "Chicken of the Sea" sandwiches... until the day she learned it was canned tuna fish. Never ate it again...

I like the definition of vegetable that says all edible plant matter can be considered a vegetable. Cucumbers are edible plant matter, regardless of the fact that they're also botanically fruits. Pickling a cucumber doesn't change whether it's a vegetable. You might call them pickled vegetables. FYI, if you shop for melon seeds much, you'll sometimes find them in the vegetable seed section, despite the fact that they're sweet. Gardeners often seem to tend to consider annual fruiting crops (and tender perennial fruiting crops grown as annuals), like watermelons and tomatoes, to be vegetables, and sweet perennials (like strawberries and peaches) to be fruits. Grocery stores seem to consider savory things (regardless of whether they have a high brix) to be vegetables and sweet things you'd eat in dessert to be fruits.