Do you know your berries?

2/10/2020

Everyone knows their berries right? Wrong. Strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries are loved by many people around the world and are considered the face of the berry category. Well, maybe not blackberries, but the rest are loved by many. However, what most people do not realize is that they do not, in fact, love berries. They love generic fruits. You see, for some reason unexplained to us by scientists, strawberries and raspberries are not actually berries. Someone, probably the same guy who decided that the tomato was a fruit, also has decided that neither strawberries nor raspberries are real berries.

By definition, a berry is "a fleshy fruit produced from a single ovary" (Konstantinovsky). This may not mean much to you at first but once you start looking into it, this definition becomes quite scary. Tomatoes and oranges are both fruits that are produced by a single ovary. Bananas are produced by a single ovary as well as pumpkins and watermelons. This is also confirmed by the layers that a berry must contain which acts as a second definition. Berries have three layers, an outer skin, the flesh in the middle, and the seeds at the center. Strawberries and raspberries both have their seeds on the outside which knocks them off the list but guess what fruits and other fit the criteria? That’s right, oranges, watermelons, pumpkins, bananas, and the tomato!

People need to be held accountable for these mistakes in food categorization. We need a new list that is based on what people know and not on this science crap that says differently. A new food categorization system that can fix the wrongdoings of the current list. Firstly, it would put the tomato in its rightful category as a vegetable, or trash, depending on where you are from. Secondly, the fruit category would be reworked to allow any fruit with the word berry in the name to be accepted as such. Lastly, items that are clearly not berries such as oranges, bananas, and especially tomatoes are removed from the berry category completely. With these changes, we can start to fix the fruit organization system that is clearly broken.

Works Cited

Konstantinovsky, Michelle. “Brace Yourself: Bananas Are Berries, Strawberries Aren't.” HowStuffWorks, HowStuffWorks, 7 Jan.

2020, recipes.howstuffworks.com/bananas-are-berries.htm.