To scientists, the facts are cut and dry. Peppers are fruit. By Britannica’s definition, fruit has at least one seed and grows from the flower of a plant. It’s a reproductive mechanism that allows plants to spread their seeds and propagate. Therefore, fruits such as habanero, poblano, and bell peppers aren’t actually a part of the plant (like lettuce) but a product produced by the plant. By definition, that fruit must always carry the seed or seeds of the parent plant. Insert images of avocado, lemon, apples, blackberries, kiwi, or grapefruit, and it’s easy to see the shared possession of seeds.
We can also envision the seeds inside the many types of peppers, especially those that have made their mark burning our eyes. Perhaps a bit more challenging to imagine are foods we think of as vegetables, such as pea pods and green beans, both of which are scientifically classified as fruits.
As humans, though, we think about food differently than scientists think about plants. That’s why we want to disregard the idea that peppers are a fruit. We’re more focused on how they taste in hash browns O’Brien, roasted on pizza, or mixed into a stir fry. That’s where we, and most cooks, classify them as vegetables.
