Yes, you’re correct but that’s why I said it was a “working” definition. When you’re a botanist (like many of my former professors) you still use the word vegetable in discussion. They would often teach us about local plants with indigenous uses using plain language like “the Chumash used the leaves of this plant as an important part of their vegetable intake”, rather than using some clinical term like “edible plant matter” or whatever.
I was only saying in these contexts, they definitely wouldn’t describe fruits as vegetables because fruit are a specific thing to a botanist. They definitely wouldn’t describe fungi as vegetables because they are also a specific thing to a botanist (not relevant 😂)
So in a scientific setting the word vegetable is still used, but it is mostly defined by what it’s not!
But when you translate “vegetable intake” to my language Danish it will have a totally different meaning. I am assuming that it means eating plant matter as you mention. I am wondering if it is a similar challenge in other languages. Because “grøntsag” will not be leaves of some tree in the Amazon, or tobacco, or a edible cactus.
It will just refer to that part that kids never eat from their dinner plate.
I guess there is a reason why it is not a very scientific language 😅
I always heard that biologically vegetables doesn’t exist. Everything is fruit. (Except grain, flowers, the obvious)
So what are potatoes? That just a tuberculo.
Carrot? Just a root. Yes it’s edible to humans but biologists don’t really care because everything is edible to something.
Disclaimer: not a biologist, just a dude tired of people violently interrupting me to tell me that “akschually a strawberry is a nut!!!”
Yes, you’re correct but that’s why I said it was a “working” definition. When you’re a botanist (like many of my former professors) you still use the word vegetable in discussion. They would often teach us about local plants with indigenous uses using plain language like “the Chumash used the leaves of this plant as an important part of their vegetable intake”, rather than using some clinical term like “edible plant matter” or whatever.
I was only saying in these contexts, they definitely wouldn’t describe fruits as vegetables because fruit are a specific thing to a botanist. They definitely wouldn’t describe fungi as vegetables because they are also a specific thing to a botanist (not relevant 😂)
So in a scientific setting the word vegetable is still used, but it is mostly defined by what it’s not!
But when you translate “vegetable intake” to my language Danish it will have a totally different meaning. I am assuming that it means eating plant matter as you mention. I am wondering if it is a similar challenge in other languages. Because “grøntsag” will not be leaves of some tree in the Amazon, or tobacco, or a edible cactus.
It will just refer to that part that kids never eat from their dinner plate.
I guess there is a reason why it is not a very scientific language 😅