Is a banana a berry or a fruit?

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Most people can easily distinguish between fruits and vegetables. However, it is more difficult to distinguish between different types of fruit. With bananas, should they be classified as berries or fruits?

1. The difference between a fruit and a berry


Fruit is a word that describes the sweet, fleshy, seeded fruits inside of flowering plants. The fruit is a plant's reproductive organ, whose main function is to distribute seeds to new areas where the plant can grow. Fruit can be divided into 2 main categories: fleshy fruit and dried fruit.
Dried fruits are foods that we normally don't think of as fruits. Examples include nuts, legumes and coconuts. The fleshy fruits are familiar fruits such as apples, cherries, and bananas.
The fleshy fruit can be subdivided into single fruit, cluster fruit and complex fruit. Berries are a type of fruit that belongs to the group of simple fruits. So all berries are fruits but not all fruits are berries.
MORE: Calories in banana

2. Banana is a plant berry


It sounds surprising but botanically, bananas are considered berries. The classification of fruit is based on the part of the tree that develops into the fruit. For example, some fruits develop from flowers containing one ovary, others develop from flowers containing multiple ovules. Besides, the seed of the fruit is surrounded by 3 main structures:
The shell or the outer part of the fruit; The flesh or the middle part of the fruit; The inner part encloses the seed or seed. The main features of these structures will contribute to the classification of the fruit. For example, to be considered a berry, the fruit must develop from a single pistil and usually have a soft, fleshy middle. The seeds inside should also be soft, which may contain one or more seeds. Bananas meet these requirements, they grow from a flower containing a single ovary. Bananas have a soft skin and a fleshy layer in the middle. Bananas also have many seeds but many people do not realize because the seeds of bananas are quite small.

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3. Many people think that bananas are not berries


Many people are completely surprised to learn that bananas are classified as berries. Most people think that berries are small fruits that can be picked from trees such as strawberries, raspberries, etc. However, botanically, these fruits are not classified as fruits. succulent. That's because instead of growing from flowers with one pistil, they develop from flowers with multiple stigmas. Therefore, these fruits often develop in clusters and are classified as clustered fruits.
On the other hand, bananas and other fruits fall under the berry classification but are not generally considered berries. This confusion started when people called certain fruits berries thousands of years before botanists came up with an exact classification of fruits. And despite the current scientific classification, most people don't know about it. In particular, sometimes botanists also disagree on the exact classification of some fruits, making it easier to confuse.
That is why the word fruit is used to refer to most fruits, including bananas - instead of the name of the group of fruits to which it is classified.

4. Other fruits are also classified as berries


Bananas are not the most confusing of the berries. There are a number of other fruits that are also considered berries - according to the botanical classification. These are tomatoes, grapes, kiwi fruit, avocado, peppers, eggplant, guava. Like bananas, these fruits all develop from flowers that contain an ovary, a fleshy center, and one or more seeds. This makes them berries - although in fact few people call them that.
Berries are a small group of fruits, sweet, fleshy, with seeds inside. Bananas are considered berries and can be called fruit or berry.

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Reference source: .healthline.com
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