Nutrition Month Special: Tomatoes are berries

CEBU, Philippines - Ola! My name is Tomatina, your friendly cherry tomato!

I am a berry. A berry is a subset of fruit. But in cooking, I am considered a vegetable.

I have so many other brothers and sisters grown all around the world. There are grape tomatoes which are small and oblong and are used in salads. There's the campari tomatoes that are also sweet and juicy that are bigger than the cherry tomatoes but smaller than the plum tomatoes. There's the globe tomatoes used for a variety of processing and typically eaten fresh. There's also the Roma or Bangalore tomatoes from India. And many more!

We boast of carotene lycopene, one of the most powerful nutrients found by scientists to be of great help in preventing certain types of cancer.

Why are we classified as a berry? Here's the explanation:

As a true fruit, we develop from the ovary of the plant after fertilization. The fruit contains hollow spaces full of seeds and moisture. These are called locular cavities.

However, we have much lower sugar content than other fruits. Therefore, we are not as sweet. Because we are typically served as part of a salad or a main course of a meal rather than on desserts, we are considered a vegetable for most cooking purposes.

We are not alone though in this somewhat confusing state. Eggplants (talong), cucumbers (pipino) and squashes (kalabasa) of all kinds like zucchini and pumpkins are all classified in botany as fruits, yet cooked as vegetables.