Is a Coconut a Seed, a Fruit or a Nut?
Tuesday, January 26, 2010 at 9:07PM You can answer just about any of the three and more or less be correct, but I'll start with the definite answer:
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If I were a botanist, I would answer “fruit” because coconuts are classified as a drupe, and a drupe is a fruit (to be more clear, a drupe is a fruit with a hard stone covering a seed, like a peach).
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A grocery shopper might call it a seed since it's the seed that you see in the produce department after the outer layers are removed.
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A word smith might call it a nut, and he wouldn't be too far off either. “Nut” is in coconut, yes, and a nut is a one-seeded fruit, yes, but a coconut is not a true nut. A true nut does not open at maturity to release its seed. Instead, it's digested by animals or opened as a result of decay. Because of that stringent definition, pistachios aren't even true nuts. (Now there's a bit of trivia you can share with your co-workers, but I wouldn't argue the point too far or they may create their own definition of who the true nut is).
There you go – feel free to explore in more depth or check my resources by clicking the links above.
Next: how do they get the coconut oil out of the coconut?
