• btsax@reddthat.comEnglish
    37·
    7 days ago

    The other side of this coin is that the banana is the largest herb; the banana tree is the tallest plant that doesn’t produce wood

    Of course mixing up culinary and botany meanings deliberately is dumb and leads to people saying things like “a tomato is a fruit” and “a strawberry isn’t a berry” those people can go produce their own wood if you know what I mean

    • Omega@lemmy.worldEnglish
      232·
      7 days ago

      A strawberry isn’t a berry. It’s just small and has it in the name. It doesn’t even look like a berry.

      Also a banana isn’t an herb. Just the banana tree is. The banana is a berry.

          • btsax@reddthat.comEnglish
            5·
            6 days ago

            congrats on being the millionth person in this thread including the original artist to not know that words can have one meaning in a scientific context and another different meaning in a culinary context

            here’s some more that will blow your mind, peanuts aren’t nuts, peanut butter isn’t butter, starfish aren’t fish, wow much learn

        • Omega@lemmy.worldEnglish
          41·
          7 days ago

          Berries are supposed to be bulbous and smooth. The only berry I can come up with that kinda has strawberry features is a raspberry because it’s more squishy. But even then, it has a lot of the little balls, like a blackberry. Strawberries just don’t look like a berry.

          • Tlaloc_Temporal@lemmy.caEnglish
            2·
            6 days ago

            Bayberries/waxberries aren’t really smootth, and Yewberries aren’t very bulbous.

            Haskap berries are lumpy and mealy, are they not berries?

            Do groundcherries count with their paper husk? Tomatillos? Cherry Tomatos?

            Are cherries berries? Rose hips?

            Cherry chili peppers are bulbous and smooth, are they berries?

            Raspberries and blackberries often have little hairs growing off of each fruit, does that mean they’re not smooth? If hair is ok, kiwifruit are bulbous, but hariy.

            • Omega@lemmy.worldEnglish
              1·
              6 days ago

              I feel like you’re naming berries that don’t look like most berries and non-berries that look like berries. I think you’re actually kinda agreeing with me and making my point.

              In this case, strawberries are not berries that also don’t look like berries.

              • Tlaloc_Temporal@lemmy.caEnglish
                1·
                2 days ago

                I’m pointing out flaws in your reasoning. Bulbous and small aren’t good categories, especially when you recognized that raspberries are different.

                I would contest that the nature of a cultural berry is being a small sweet fruit that typically wants to be eaten. Strawberries sit alongside gooseberries, raspberries, cherries, and all the other traditional berries in this. Strawberries are certainly unique in their structure, but that doesn’t change how we eat them.

                The botanical berry definition has little to do with the cultural definition besides taking the name. Try looking at the botanical definition of tree sometime. Does Bamboo count? Palm trees? Ginkgo? It’s a strategy for than a rigid group.

  • TheEighthDoctor@lemmy.zipEnglish
    19·
    6 days ago

    To be honest people eat basil and rosemary leaves not the wood part. So the same could be said about bay leaves, no one bites the tree itself

  • JCSpark@lemmy.caEnglish
    4·
    5 days ago

    I feel compelled to advertise credit this artist. They have a ton of great works, and deserve the sales recognition. Support your local artists, and make sure people know who they are.

    False Knees

    You cab find the other socials on their page.

  • Zacryon@feddit.orgEnglish
    13·
    7 days ago

    Strawberries are not berries (but aggregate accessory fruits). Cucumber, watermelon and pumpkin belong to the same family of plants. Tomatoes are fruit. Well botanically, vegetables do not exist anyway. Vegetables are a social construct. Also, wheat is a kind of grass. Isn’t our world beautiful?

          • flora_explora@beehaw.orgEnglish
            2·
            6 days ago

            Eating eggs -> financially supporting a system where male chicks get either immediately killed after birth or more rarely are later killed for their meat. Also it is supporting a system where chickens are bred to produce as many eggs as fast as possible, which means a life of torture to them

            Drinking milk -> financially supporting a system where cows are continuously impregnated against their will and where their offspring is immediately taken from them and killed for their meat (I think this is done yearly). Also it is supporting a system where cows are bred to produce as much milk as fast as possible, which means a life of torture to them

            There are certainly many more atrocities happening, but I’m trying not to think too often of that stuff

            • Tonava@sopuli.xyzEnglish
              2·
              5 days ago

              Also just supporting bad agriculture in general, since pesticides kill crazy amounts of stuff, deforestation, giant monoculture fields suffocating native wildlife, producing the fertilizers unethically, transporting stuff half across the world needlessly… if you do anything the “optimize profits” -way things get shitty. All of these things apply to plant based diets as well, but vegans often focus on the whole chain of ethical and ecological problems whereas vegetarians tend to focus more to the personal level of things. So even what plant products they buy and consume might have some big differences in ecological impact and ethical concerns

              • flora_explora@beehaw.orgEnglish
                2·
                5 days ago

                Hm, I think there is a clearer ethical distinction between vegetarians and vegans. But this doesn’t necessarily translate towards the participation in our capitalist system.

                For example, I’m a long-time vegan but due to my financially very limited resources I mostly buy cheap conventional food, even vegan meat substitutes from actual meat companies (they are way cheaper). In contrast, a friend of mine is living vegetarian, but she works on an organic farm. So she works towards a more sustainable agriculture while also consuming nearly only organic products.

                • Tonava@sopuli.xyzEnglish
                  2·
                  5 days ago

                  Oh for sure, I made a very broad generalization there, to simplify the point. Just someone trying to live ethically and using only local products, but eating meat (hunted, organic, etc. locally small scale, animal suffering minimized and all that) could very well have a lesser ecological impact than someone being vegan but relying on imported soy etc. In my experience vegans are just the most likely to even think about this stuff since veganism usually goes further than just being about a diet, but that doesn’t mean all vegans do, or that a lot of non-vegans don’t.

                  And having the possibility to choose options based only on ethics and sustainability of course is a privilege a lot of people just don’t have

          • lad@programming.devEnglish
            1·
            6 days ago

            I would guess by eating dairy, eggs, leather, etc. I heard this take just yesterday, and I can see a point, because most animal industries don’t treat animals well even when it’s not about killing the animal

            • Axolotl@feddit.itEnglish
              1·
              6 days ago

              leather is mainly a waste product, no one actually kills animals for their skins (except animals that are valuable to humans only for their skin but those are the exception and in many places is even an illegal practice), so idk if i would count the use of leather :shrug:

    • flora_explora@beehaw.orgEnglish
      2·
      6 days ago

      That wheat is a grass is even easier to understand than corn also is one. And don’t forget bamboo, which can even grow into huge “trees” forming large bamboo forests!

    • WhyIHateTheInternet@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      7 days ago

      It is beautiful, but you made it sound like Mexican food. It’s all the same you can just do it differently and call it something else.

      • captainlezbian@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        6 days ago

        The most sensical classification of species. Tracking shared traits and now shared DNA to group species by how recently they share an ancestor.

    • flora_explora@beehaw.orgEnglish
      2·
      6 days ago

      This is a play on the two meanings of herb. Of course they are still “herbs” in the culinary sense. But in a botanical sense you would classify plants into categories like herb(aceous plant), sub-shrub, shrub, tree, vine, liana, etc. This doesn’t affect culinary names though.