A vegetable is an edible plant or part of a plant. This typically means the leaf, stem, or root of a plant.
The non-biological definition of a vegetable is largely based on culinary and cultural tradition. Therefore, the application of the word is somewhat arbitrary, based on cultural and/or personal views. For example, some people consider mushrooms to be vegetables even though they are not biologically plants, while others consider them a separate food category; Some cultures group potatoes with cereal products such as noodles or rice, while most English speakers would consider them vegetables.
Some vegetables can be consumed raw, some may be eaten cooked, and some must be cooked in order to be edible. Vegetables are most often cooked in savory or salty dishes. However, a few vegetables can be used in desserts and other sweet dishes, such as pumpkin pie and carrot cake. A number of processed food items available on the market contain vegetable ingredients and can be referred to as "vegetable derived" products. These products may or may not maintain the nutritional integrity of the vegetable used to produce them.
Read more about Vegetable: Etymology, Terminology, Examples of Different Parts of Plants Used As Vegetables, Nutrition, Dietary Recommendations, Color Pigments, Cultivation and Export, Safety, Storage, Standards
Famous quotes containing the word vegetable:
“Then a sentimental passion of a vegetable fashion must excite your
languid spleen,
An attachment a la Plato for a bashful young potato, or a
not-too-French French bean!”
—Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (1836–1911)
“A vegetable garden in the beginning looks so promising and then after all little by little it grows nothing but vegetables, nothing, nothing but vegetables.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“They have been waiting for us in a foetor
Of vegetable sweat since civil war days,
Since the gravel-crunching, interminable departure
Of the expropriated mycologist.”
—Derek Mahon (b. 1941)