The tomato

📖 In short

The tomato is a red, juicy, smooth fruit that we eat in salads and make into sauce, juice and ketchup. Botanists call it a fruit because it has seeds, but most people think of it as a vegetable, because it's cooked like one.

🤩 Did you know?

There are more than 4000 kinds of tomatoes.
The world produces many millions of tonnes of tomatoes every year.
Tomatoes contain a red substance that's good for the heart, called lycopene.
Scientists have developed kinds of tomatoes suited to harvesting by machine.

🔎 Find out more

🌟 Fruit or vegetable?

Scientists call anything that grows from a flower and contains seeds a fruit, so the tomato is scientifically a fruit, like the cucumber, the pepper and the eggplant!

🔍 America

The tomato comes from South and Central America. When it reached Europe, some people were afraid of it at first and thought it was poisonous, but then it became one of the most widespread foods.