Are Nuts Fruit?

Are nuts actually fruits?  What constitutes a fruit anyway? The answer might surprise you!

The Short Answer

Yes, nuts are technically fruits.

The Long Answer

I know, you’re skeptical, right? Nuts are nuts! A walnut isn’t the same thing as an apple, right? Wrong. Nuts are fruits, people. Honest to goodness fruits. That might seem strange, but not all fruits are like apples, oranges and bananas. Fruits are produced by plants and grow from the fertilized ovary of a flower. They grow and contain the seeds of the plant they were born from. This is true for apples and pears, but it is also true for nuts.

A nut is defined as a fruit consisting of a hard shell that surrounds an edible seed. Typically, when we eat nuts, what we’re eating is the seed of that fruit. Some examples of this include walnuts and peanuts. Speaking of which, you have got to check out the answer we found for are peanuts actually nuts or are they legumes.

Of course, there are some exceptions to nuts being fruit. Almonds, for example, are edible seeds found in a fruit called drupe. While these exceptions do exist, the botanical definition of nuts insists that they are fruits.

Did we surprise you with that one? Which nut is your favorite?