Short Wave - Yep, We Made Up Vegetables

Episode Date: June 11, 2021

After hearing a vicious rumor on the internet that vegetables aren't real, Maddie goes looking for answers. Turns out, vegetables are a mere culinary construct. Still healthful and delicious, but a kinda mythic category of food. With the help of Harvard botanist Molly Edwards, Maddie and Emily break down our favorite foods from broccoli to zucchini. Take our survey! Tell us what you love and what you would love to see more of — on our show, and also other NPR podcasts.Email the show at [e-mail] pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

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You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. Emily Kwong here with Maddie Safia. Hi, Maddie. Hey, there, co-hosty. So what did you bring us today? Okay, Emily, as you know, my partner, Natalie, has been spending roughly 28 to 36 hours a day on TikTok since she first got into it. Are you familiar? with TikTok. Do you know about it?

I do, and I stay far away because I would not be able to stop going on TikTok if I started. Okay. So one day, she busts into our bedroom and looks me dead in the eyes and says, why didn't you tell me vegetables aren't real? So had you guys been smoking or? So anyways, I'm like, Natalie, darling, sweet baby angel face, sugar butt, what are you talking about right now? And it turns out that she had stumbled on something that shook me.

to my core, that vegetables aren't real. From a botanical perspective, vegetable is just a word that we have made up and given to parts of plants that we eat. What? I thought vegetables came from types of plants. Uh-huh, yeah. Vegetable plants. Yeah, me too.

So naturally, after she told me this, this became my number one personal and professional priority. I stopped everything, called up a botanist named Molly Edwards. She's a PhD candidate at Harvard studying plant genetics and evolution. Emily, just listen to the beginning of our conversation. So, Molly, can you tell me, like, what exactly are vegetables, like, from a botanical perspective? Oh, Maddie, vegetables aren't anything. No, botanicals in perspective.

I'm so sorry. Brutal. Wait, so, like, they don't, like, to a botanist, they're like, we do not recognize the vegetable. Correct. Yeah, it does not have a botanical definition. So unlike fruits, which do have a vegetable. very specific botanical definition, which we can get into later. Vegetables are pretty much just a culinary category.

You know, still useful, still delicious, but not really like a thing, strictly speaking. I'm going to need some time with this, Maddie. This is different. I know, I know. This is an adjustment. Yeah, don't worry, Molly says it happens to everybody. Before I was shaking people to their core, I got shook to my core in my first botany classes. This was, I still remember how mind-blowing it was to learn.

that vegetables are a lie. Forget everything you know about vegetables, Emily, because this is a deep well. It just, it keeps getting weirder. All right, today on the show, Maddie tells us weird stuff about vegetables. I'm going to change the way you think about broccoli. I'll tell you that right now. And we'll share a bit of listener mail from you, dear shortwave nerds.

This is Shortwave, the Daily Science Podcast from NPR. Okay, Maddie, so before the break, you told me something devastating, that vegetables aren't their own thing. It's just a made-up culinary term for the edible parts of plants. Correct. And one of the coolest and most initially unsettling things I learned from Molly is that vegetables are technically plant organs. Yeah, so vegetables can come from lots of different plant organs, especially from like leaves, stems, and roots. Leaves, stems, roots, flowers.

The plant stuff we eat organs. I mean, I know that organs are just like functional units that carry out a task, but I'm not sure I love thinking of kale as an organ. I know, right. It's awesome. And plants are special because they have the ability to keep producing these organs over and over, which is obviously very different from humans. So all of our organs and body plan are established before we're born. And we come out, you know, with our organs, our body plan, our head where our head is, our teeth, our head is. tail where our tail is, and we're good to go. But plants are actually continually going through development over their entire lives, and they're always producing new organs. Wow. I know, right? They can do this because they have oodles of stem cells. They're different from human stem cells, obviously, but those cells allow them to just keep producing new organs. Can you imagine just

growing a brain as you please or knocking out a kidney? Wouldn't that be nice? Sometimes plants are just like way cooler than us, you know what I mean? Oh, for sure. Okay. So this brings us to another piece of this, which is that many of your favorite vegetables, Emily Klong, are actually all derived from the same species. The most extreme example of this is brasica oloracea, which is broccoli, but it's also kale and cauliflower and brocolonelanisco and collard greens and Brussels sprouts. That's a long list. So cauliflower and collard greens are from the same plant. Yep. And we pretty much eat as much as we can of this plant. When you eat kale, collard greens, cabbage, you're primarily eating brassica leaves. Colerabi, you're eating the stem. Brussels sprouts are these things called axillary buds, broccoli, flower buds, cauliflower, that haven't quite made it. Same cauliflower. But like, Maddie, how is this possible? Okay, I don't understand. Basically, it's because brassica is awesome.

And we took advantage of it. Brassica as a genus has like a really wild genomic and genetic evolutionary history that led to it having a lot of sort of extra genetic variation hanging around that allowed all of these different cultivars to kind of explore this space of making different shapes and sizes of their organs. And then farmers could kind of harness that and say like, oh, look at this weird plant, this weird mutant that came about. Like I kind of like the way it's leaves look. I'm going to take that and breed it and hope to get that new organ shape in its babies. Wow. So we're responsible for vegetables. We're responsible.

I mean, it's not like that different from dog breeds in a way. I mean, those are all the same species. But obviously, there is a lot of variability from a Chihuahua to a great date, right? Sure. Humans have just bred what they like. We have. We have. So to review, unlike fruits, vegetables are just a culinary term.

There's no botanical classification. Yep. And plants can produce these vegetables, aka organs, over and over, because they have awesome stem cells. Got it. And lastly, some plants are responsible for a lot of different vegetables. Nailed it. This is a lot of new stuff to come to terms with. But vegetables, they're worth it. And I also appreciate knowing fruits have kind of a more straightforward definition.

Like they are as they appear. You know what I mean? Well. What? What is it? Just because fruits are more straightforward. straightforward doesn't mean you really know them, Emily. I mean, okay. So a fruit is technically a mature, ripened ovary and all its contents. That's its definition. But we still get it wrong a lot

when we're just talking about fruits. The delicious part of the strawberry isn't actually fruit at all. Because fruits are mature plant ovaries and that red delicious part of the strawberry doesn't come from the ovary at all. And the true fruits of the strawberry are all those little things that you probably think are seeds on the outside of the strawberry. Wait, those seedy-looking things on the outside of strawberries are the fruit of the strawberry. Yeah. So those little things on the outside of strawberries, those are the true fruit. And inside those little guys are the seeds.

That is, that is. Free your mind, Emily. Free your mind. Just wait until you hear about berries. Okay. Can you handle this right now? I don't think again. You can do it.

You can do it. Okay. So berries are a type of fruit that comes from a single ovary where all the layers of the fruit are fleshy. Tomatoes, zucchini, avocados, these are all berries. And everything that we think of as a berry is not. So strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, none of those are berries. You know, I appreciate knowing, but it's just a lot to adjust to, Molly. I know, I know. I'm sorry. I wish I could take you back to an easier time. Emily, I also wish I could take you back to an easier time. But do I? Clearly not.

You chose to bring me this. Listen, I thought you would want to know. Don't you like knowing? I do like knowing. I do. I don't want my vegetable innocence back. Right. So take it.

Take it, universe. And I appreciate these fruits and veggies even more now. Me too. All right, you weirdo. I'm ready for some listener mail. And then we'll get out of here, you know? Let's do it. Let's do it.

Okay. So we got some mail following our. our episode about the Brood Ten Cicadas, the totally harmless and very abundant insects that have lived underground for 17 years and have now emerged in several places around the U.S. with the only goal, find a mate. Yeah, Maddie, I was walking the other day and one hit me like right in the face. And honestly, I felt blessed. That's the correct reaction, Emily Kwong, that's the correct reaction.

So this first email is from Miranda. It goes, hi, hi, shortwave team. I am an avid science lover. And after listening to your episode on the Brood Ten Cicadas, was looking forward in a sciencey way to their return. Then I found a cicada in my bed. I can honestly say that after feeling sheer terror, I remembered that episode and was calmed by knowing at least a bit more about this critter.

I'm sure he wouldn't be happy to find me in his bed either. Then I remembered their creepy butt eating fungus. Thank you for an exciting night. Miranda. Thank you for an exciting night. I mean, you can't forget the butt-eating fungus, quang. Let's be real. I mean, after years of being underground, some of these cicadas emerge harboring a parasitic fungus that makes their butts fall off and they can't mate.

I mean, after all those years, can you imagine. It's a cruel twist of fate. Cruel. Okay, so all this butt talk brings us to my piece of listener mail. Oh, can't wait. Okay. From Jenny and kiddo Lucy. Hi, Shortwave.

My kindergartner and I love your show. She's been yelling, quote, and boom, the butt falls off since we listened to the episode on Brood 10. Thanks again, Jenny and Lucy H5. Wow, Maddie, making people more tolerant of bugs and butts. What an accomplishment. And what an episode? I hope you're happy with how it's resonating. I mean, what can I say?

Our work here is done, Emily. Our work here is done. That's it from us. If you want to send us some listener mail, go ahead. and email us at shortwave at npr.org. Special thanks to Molly Edwards for blowing our vegetable minds and being there for us emotionally while she did it. Before we go, quick reminder that you can help us out

by completing NPR's podcast survey. It's short, it's anonymous, it's data gathering, and it will help us serve you better. Just go to npr.org slash podcast survey. Again, that's npr.org slash podcast survey. This episode They keep me growing strong. This episode was produced by Thomas Liu, fact-checked by Indy Kara and Rasha Auretti and edited by Big Dog Giselle Grayson.

The audio engineer for this episode was Neil Tebowl. I'm Emily Kwong. And I'm Maddie Safaya. Thanks for listening to Shortwave from NPR. Okay, I feel like I owe Amanda Kwong an apology. My sister, text me, and she's like, Did you know broccoli is manmade? And I was like, Amanda, you need to stop doing this.

And she was like, that can be a shortwave episode. And I was like, no. It's not a shortwave episode.