Veggies - no hesitation. I do love alll those fruits too but it’s the savories that I would stuff myself with.

Veggies (except mushrooms) for sure.

Very difficult. I would probably choose fruit, because I can get the savory from meat, fish, starches but the bright fresh sweetness of fruit is hard to replace. I mean, how do you get anything else to taste like a ripe plum or juicy watermelon?

In actual real life, though, I eat more veg than fruit.

I'd have had moderate amounts of each.

Jicama is a veggie not a fruit. I believe it grows in the ground.

I would choose fruit, knowing I should choose veggies. With so much fruit, I would have to have some protein to balance all the carbs.

Vegetables. I can't eat that much sweet fruit. It's like eating a whole plate of cookies for me. But in saying veggies, I'm claiming a lot of fruit! Peppers, squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, tomatillos, etc., to go with the spinach and all leafy greens, carrots, turnips, onions and other roots, cabbages, cauliflower and other brassicas. As well as fungi (mushrooms), grass (corn) and flowers (artichokes).

With grilled meats or fish, vegetables. Fruit for breakfast or dessert.

Hope you didn't suffer any issues with buffet food. DIL spent one week of her recent two weeks in Mexico laid low by a vicious stomach bug. Was investigated for tropical diseases on her return home.

One can't live on JUST either or. I would need some of both.

Veggies are healthier, but I prefer to eat fruit.

Veggies with the main meal, fruit for dessert.

Yep,,,me too...both...save most of the fruit for dessert, except

for the melon...that goes with the main meal for me.

I eat tons of veggies! Love Cozumel! Great diving!

Veggies for me but let me include tomatoes!

From 1977 to 1982, I spent about five days every winter in Cozumel, as part of my annual escape to Mexico from San Francisco, but Mexico City was the main part of my trip. I always stayed in the town (San Miguel de Cozumel), where I paid $6 to $10 a night for hotels back then. There weren't that many restaurants to choose from back then, and so the food wasn't all that good. For fruit, I mostly had papaya (which you did not mention), and I never had blueberries, strawberries, or kiwi that I can remember, but I did have guanabana, mamey, and guava (guayaba), which you also did not mention, as well as mango. I always had limes to squeeze over the fruit, to cut the sweetness.

I don't remember having just a great choice of vegetables back then either, but I'm sure the resort hotels had much better food than the local restaurants. I never saw a buffet on the beach, however. The resort hotels cost from $100 to $150 a night back then, which was quite expensive, especially compared to the hotels in town, which were adequate for my needs.

Unfortunately, I always traveled there alone, and so I easily got bored by five days and then went on to other parts of Mexico, unless Cozumel was my last stop, and then I sometimes went to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, although I usually flew to or from Houston.

I always ate a lot of tropical fruits in Mexico - more than I had of vegetables, but I would have eaten more of the vegetables if they had been on the menu. I ate more fruit partly because the fruit there was so much better than in the U.S.

In 1977, Cancún was under construction, as were a lot of the roads in Quintana Roo. I hitchhiked to places like Xel-ha from Playa Del Carmen back then, and there was almost no one there. It would be interesting to go back and see how it has changed - Kevin has never been there and wants to go.

There was one pizza restaurant in Cozumel in the 1970s that I went to, and it was particularly good and was the only place in Mexico where I had good pizza, although I did make pizza myself at friends' apartment in Mexico City.

Lars, I was just thinking of Cancún. When I graduated from college in 1980, my roommate, our neighbor, and I celebrated with a trip to Cancún. It was still so new, there were only two hotels on the beach, one main road. Locals were so happy to have the development, it meant so many jobs, and people told us proudly that they were able to build a concrete block house for their family. As we traveled around, most of the housing we saw was, in fact, for lack of a better word, huts with hammocks. As to what we ate, we were amazed at all the seafood! In Dallas all the ”Mexican” food was really Tex-Mex.

Anyway, back to the topic. I suppose vegetables. More satisfying. Can I have some ranch dressing, please?

We stayed at an all inclusive resort. Im completely sold on these. Not only can one eat, drink, and be merry, and not have to fuss with money, (an extremely awkward thing, when spending a day at poolside etc.) they tend to offer wonderful field trips to places of interest. Tips for all are paid at the end. We visited ancient ruins, a museum, a shopping district where the cruise ships docked, and took a boatride for a day of snorkeling. Im pretty sure these are going to be more and more the norm for travelers. I would not consider otherwise. We also stayed at all inclusives in Venice and Tuscany that were out of this world wonderful. I guess it would depend on your travel goals. Sometimes, you might want to stray from the beaten path, and experience more of the actual culture of a place, and eat in fabulous holes in walls and such, and this is NOT that. An aside on tipping, I remember learning that tipping is not expected in Europe. The service workers, so it is said, are paid a living wage. I wish that would happen here someday.

I prefer off the beaten path. Of course when I first visited Cozumel, I was in my 20s and was able to travel for two months in the winter and explore on my own as I wanted. I went snorkeling almost every day while in Cozumel, always at a different beach. I often ate excellent street food in Mexico, and I stayed at friends' houses in Mexico City for free, and they invited me to visit them for as long as I wanted.

In Italy, we rented a car and went to out of the way places where the only other tourists were Italians. I booked all of the hotels myself ahead of time, and we did stay in one luxury hotel in Florence for three nights - the hotels where we stayed in Rome were also excellent, but less expensive than Florence. We stayed at one B&B in Tivoli where the owner did not speak English, but I am sufficiently fluent in Italian, which allowed me to have interesting conversations with taxi drivers and restaurant owners in remote locations.

I have never been interested in being part of a tour group - but I would consider it if I went to a country where I do not speak the language. When I went to Brazil, I went with a friend who is fluent in Portuguese (He lived in Portugal as a child until he was 10), and so he did most of the talking for me, since I speak only a few sentences in Portuguese. I would like to go to Greece and I do not speak Greek at all.

I had lots of good fruits and vegetables in Brazil and drank a lot of pitaya (dragon fruit) juice, which is common there. I also had some cashew juice, which is not exported because it does not keep, and it tasted pretty terrible, but there was a lot of passion fruit juice and other juices that I cannot remember at the moment. My favorite vegetable was yucca root, which I also buy here.

Given the option, I'd go for the veggies (except mushrooms).

I eat very little fruit, although I'll happily eat watermelon if offered.

Greece wouldn't be a problem for you, Lars. We don't speak Greek either but lots of people speak English. Thousands of Brits go there every year.

With such an elastic line between fruit and vegetable I would probably choose fruit but then oh woe, what about carrots or potatoes? I usually serve a bowl of cut fruit with our meals as a way to get more fruit and veg into DH. It also serves as a sort of dessert and he loves sweet.

patriciae

I would be okay in most countries that use the same or similar alphabet, and use Romance or Germanic language. I don’t have to speak it, but at least recognize words spoken and written. (When I was traveling in Europe, I only had trouble twice. Once in Sweden, where the only person I met who did not speak English was an empooyee at a train station! We finally did a combination of Swedish and German. And then once in Germany, I had to explain a delicate need to a restroom attendant, and apparently the Swiss German word for it is not the same as the High German word!)

When DH went to a company conference in Saõ Paolo in, I think 1993, they were instructed to not go out without the group, and without the local representative. Crime against foreigners was especially rampant at the time. Nonetheless, their hosts showed them a good time, good food.

yeah. We rented a car and tried to drive from Tuscany to Lucca. Got stupidly lost. We made it though, just later than we planned. With very few exceptions, everyone spoke English. It was shocking, and rather embarrasing, but certainly made things easier. The translating app on our phones sure helped at markets. I actually think I prefer the Mexican cuisine over what I ended up eating in Italy. I loved the fresh fish in Cozumel, and will always remember the perfectly prepared, massive mound of glorious veggies, repeatedly on my plate.

" to drive from Tuscany to Lucca". Lucca's in Tuscany. Perhaps you were driving from Florence to Lucca? Parking in Lucca is nightmarish. If anyone's thinking of going, park outside the walls.

Floral: No I goofed. We drove from the resort we were staying at to Lucca. Yes we were able to park outside the walls. It sure was beautiful!!! I loved it. I would love to go back some day.

Ah, Lucca. We spent a week in Lucca a few years ago. Well, actually DD found us a lovely villa in the hills outside of Lucca and DD and I liked it so much we refused to go to Lucca at all, which made SWMBO very resentful, indeed to this day I believe. Someday we'll go back and actually poke a toe into Lucca.

For all you veggiesauri, remember tomato is a fruit so No. Tomatoes. For. You. For the frutitarians - I seem to be the only one? - take heart we can have legumes, i.e. lentils, beans, soy products, peas, etc, thus we need not face Life Sans Tofu.

John: Har-Har. I don't how tomatoes got there. Sneaky things. And, I have very much enjoyed a Life Sans Tofu.

Tomatoes are seed pods, and therefore fruit by definition.

Note that my post rejected only sweet fruit, and claimed tomatoes, squash, peppers, etc., for my own veggieness. If the sweet-fruit-heads want to keep the sweet Winter squash, that's fair. I can eschew the pumpkins if I can keep the pattipans. :)

Hmm, maybe I will try putting my money where my mouth is, so to speak, and eating All Fruit No Veg for a couple of weeks.

Since I can have tomatoes, peppers, beans, lentils, soy, peas, squash, zucchini, cucumber, corn, olives, etc - these are all fruits or legumes, despite plllog’s attempts at revisionist botany and expansionist veggienalism! - I will probably survive.

The biggest sacrifice will be no lettuce, spinach, kale, cabbage, etc for salads. Maybe the leaves from a fruit plant can be a passable carrier of salad dressing. I will eat a leaf off my tomato plant tonight and see.

I’m pretty sure I can make a potato substitute, at least a mashed potato substitute, from pureed corn, chickpeas, and so on - mashed anything is just a vehicle for heavy cream and butter after all.

Oh WAIT I just realized onion, scallion, garlic, shallot are (bulb) vegetables. I am now deeply torn. Life Sans Garlic or Life Sans Tofu And Tomato? It is a cruel dilemma.

That’s it - I don’t personally consider garlic or onion as vegetables, but think of them as herbs, so problem solved by disregarding botany!

If you can eat fruit leaves (not nightshades, please) I can eat squash! I don't know the botany, but I do know fruit is a seed pod. Leaves are vegetables. ;)

Have you wondered why you know that leaves are vegetables? That it is an artificial category? It is not botanical not that that is important. What is or is not a fruit is a part of Botany but that is also an artificial designation. We categorize things for convenience.

patriciae

That's a tough one. I tend to call tomatoes, peppers, squash... fruits. Fruits of those plants. But for the sake of the OP opener, those are in the veggie catagory. So be it. They are veggies for the sake of a weeks vacation :)

I'm usually one for veggies, and tend to eat them more than meat. But if I were vacationing somewhere that had really excellent fruit and good seafood action I would probably be happily eating fruit for a week. Or cheese- if there is great cheese to be had, I could eat fruit and cheese for a week and be content.

Patricia, That's what I was taught. I daresay it's a culinary definition.

When it comes to tomatoes, my personal classifications :

Hybrids = Vegetable

Heirlooms = Fruit

Difficult choice, indeed. But if forced, I'd go for the vegetables.

Tomatoes as fruit IIRC is because of a commerce designation, rates, or tax, darn, now I have to interrupt my coffee and go look it up.

Okay, here, from Wikipedia (not like that’s authoratative but anyway):

Although the tomato is cooked and eaten as a vegetable, botanically, a tomato is a fruit, specifically a berry, consisting of the ovary, together with its seeds, of a flowering plant.[122][123] The issue has led to legal dispute in the United States. In 1887, U.S. tariff laws that imposed a duty on vegetables, but not on fruit, caused the tomato's status to become a matter of legal importance. In Nix v. Hedden, the U.S. Supreme Court settled the controversy on 10 May 1893, by declaring that for the purposes of the Tariff of 1883 only, the tomato is a vegetable, based on the popular definition that classifies vegetables by use—they are generally served with dinner and not dessert.[124]

Pillog- of course. So was I except when I was studying Botany. I have this great book upstairs somewhere that is a recreation of plant botany from a couple thousand years ago. They grouped plants by how they grew out of the ground. Very serious and everything. It made for some interesting combinations in plant families. Different palms ended up in different groups depending on if they had a clump of leaves like palmetto or a long stem and a bushy top like a date palm. Palmetto and Foxglove would be in the same plant family.

patriciae