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We have started to watch what we eat trying to follow a healthy balanced diet I enjoy tomatoes and have heard many times that they are classified as a fruit, but also a vegetable. Considering the recommended balance is 5 serves of veg and 2 serves of fruit, where does the tomato fit in that?

EDIT: Note, this question is specific about what category a tomato sits in from a dietary perspective. The answer given in What foods count towards 5 a day? is a very general of a link that does not even contain the word tomato.

Trevor
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  • @JonMarkPerry OP specifically excluded that question and I have to agree it's not a dupe. But I'm also not convinced this question is on topic here. Dietary questions generally aren't. – Carey Gregory May 30 '19 at 04:12
  • @CareyGregory what stack exchange would be the right place? I'm keen to get a medical professional's response, not just a person. – Trevor May 30 '19 at 05:29
  • @Trevor; I was going to suggest https://cooking.stackexchange.com/, but looking at https://cooking.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic, I'm not sure questions about 'fruitables' are on-topic there either. – JMP May 30 '19 at 05:33
  • FYI, when as the OP you get the message a question is flaged as possible duplicate, you are presented with two options, agree it's a duplicate and delete or edit the question. The exclusion was the edit to make it clear it's not. Just an FYI. – Trevor May 30 '19 at 05:33
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    @Trevor; When I wrote my question, I was asking why the potato (as in chips) wasn't considered one of my 5 a day. Your question looks very similar to mine to me! But I've retracted my close vote as you edited your question. – JMP May 30 '19 at 05:35
  • @JonMarkPerry and probably wouldn't get a medically qualified response either. The intent is to get an answer based on medical science, not on botanic or anything else. Maybe it's one that is gray :) – Trevor May 30 '19 at 05:37
  • Unfortunately, there really isn't an exchange that addresses nutrition questions. Biology could tell you how biologists classify tomatoes, but that's not necessarily how dietitians classify them, and I'm pretty sure Cooking would reject it. Perhaps you should go to Area 51 and see if there's a nutrition site proposal, and if not you could start one. Since you already have a good answer and no close votes, I'll leave the question to stand. – Carey Gregory May 30 '19 at 14:37

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The recommended balance between 5 servings of vegetables and 2 servings of fruit is only one of different recommendations, for example, Dietary Guidelines for Americans by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and U.S. Department of Agriculture recommend 2.5 cups of vegetables and 1 cup of fruits per day in a 2,000 Calorie diet. On that same page, you can see they've put tomatoes into a vegetable group.

From the nutrition viewpoint, the main difference between vegetables and fruits is in their sugar content. A 100 g tomato contains only ~2.6 g of sugars, while an apple contains ~10 g. There seems to be no exact sugar amount determined that would put a certain plant into a fruit category, though.

There is no essential nutrient that vegetables, as a group, would have and fruits wouldn't. A certain vegetable and a certain fruit can contain more similar amounts of a certain nutrient, for example, potassium than 2 fruits or 2 vegetables (PubMed, Table 3).

All this suggests that one doesn't need to be too worried about what counts as a vegetable or a fruit and how many servings of each to eat but think which foods to eat to get all the essential nutrients.

Jan
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