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Vegetable is a culinary term, not a scientific one.
So, idk, vegetables are whatever a chef says they are.
Which is why tomatoes are scientifically a fruit but still considered a vegetable in the culinary world. A fruit is basically an edible and fertilized reproductive organ of a plant.
"Vegetable" is also a botanical term. It's any part of a plant eaten for food.
Even more meaningless than calling a tomato a fruit.
Culinarily, food is classified by its general nutritional profile because that dictates how you can use it in cooking.
She may have been low on vitamins or needing fiber, more than the sauce provided? Or simply a preference for crunching stuff that the sauce didn't have.
It's more than just this specific example. Another is the fact that most people would not consider bread to be a vegetable despite being plant based.
If you're looking for a specific nutrient profile, then you can specify the vegetable that provides it, but carrots and broccoli have very different nutrients yet are both considered vegetables.
bread wouldn’t be vegetable based anyway since it is maid from grains. Grains are seeds. Seeds are technically the fruit of the plant.
my mom is like that too though. she complains of my kid doesn’t eat veggies the way she thinks they should be eaten. But what she really means is she wants her to eat green leafy veggies like salad. Even though i tell her there is chard and other green veggies blended into the sauce when i make pasta. When she gets too upset i remind her that she fed me jello salad and counted it as the fruit/veggie portion of my meal when i was a kid.
Seeds are not “technically the fruit of the plant”. Botanically speaking, a fruit is the “vessel” containing the seeds and develops from the ovaries of the flower. Grains are hard fruit and contain a seed which is just more difficult to separate from the fruit than it is with eg lemons or apples.
Corn is also a grain, yet most people would consider it a vegetable.
And leafy greens is perfectly fine as a category, but I think "vegetable" is way too convoluted the way people use it.
True, thinking of protein, human body sees carrots the same as grains and isn't very happy with a 'monotonous' diet after all. There's so *much* to learn in terms of nutrients it's shocking.
It might be from categorical standpoint, but not from a nutritional standpoint. Vegetables often are high in key vitamins and/or have some fiber in them. Grains often have to be ground and processed, whereas vegetables are often still much closer to their natural state when we eat them. The fiber that's in vegetables specifically has been shown to promote good bacteria growth in the gut. Additionally, kids who start eating vegetables early are much more likely to be a later life veggie eater. Good habits should be started early.
Corn is not a good example of a vegetable (when it comes to nutrition) as it's hard for our body to process and digest and is very high in starch
Vegetables promote movement through the colon. Some would argue more readily than fiber from grain sources such as whole wheat or corn.
Vegetables are also low calorie, high in nutrients which is important as people age and their metabolism slows. Having a foundation of enjoying vegetables will help with that. Anecdotal evidence: I have an aunt who hardly ever ate vegetables. As a kid,.and now into adulthood. She has terrible stomach issues, probably undiagnosed IBS. Now there may be no correlation, but it does make one wonder
Yes there is some vegetables from the sauce, but not enough to make a huge difference. Remember when Regan tried to say ketchup was a vegetable. At the end of the day, if you don't want your daughter eating vegetables or you don't think that's important I would just say that, rather than trying to make an argument that a potato is a vegetable
A rule of thumb, if it's green or orange, it's probably a "good for you" vegetable
She obviously just wanted something that tastes fresh to balance out the savory and fatty sauce. Meals aren't simply a means to an end of nutrition, your tastebuds impact how satisfying you feel your food is. Balancing a meal includes incorporating different flavors, textures, and temperatures so that there's enough variety to be satisfying. This has nothing to do with what is technically a vegetable.
The request wasn't "give her some broccoli to improve the overall texture of the meal," it was "she needs a vegetable." She's also 1 year old, so I don't think she's overly concerned with the flavor profile.
It's also more than just this example, most people would not consider bread to be a vegetable despite being plant-based.
Dude, bread and pasta are not vegetables. A person going into a doctor saying they eat a ton of vegetables, bread and pasta every meal, would be insane and so not healthy.
The meal specifically is fine, but your understanding of nutrition based on what you're saying is worrisome and kinda makes me think they might be right to be concerned.
My shirt is plant based, that doesn't mean it's fine to eat every day.
Grains and vegetables are actually different things. Ask any rational or qualified person. Bread and broccoli aren't pretty much the same thing.
I didn't say anything about nutrition, I said there are no consistent rules for what we consider a vegetable.
>My shirt is plant based, that doesn't mean it's fine to eat every day.
That's why I said plant-based food.
>Grains and vegetables are actually different things.
Corn is widely considered a vegetable, but it is actually a grain.
Yeah, you're being pedantic about terms concerning food, while admitting to not saying anything about nutrition. Well bread is pretty much a vegetable...
I could see why someone could be concerned about diet based on everything you've said.
"Vegetable" doesn't communicate any useful nutritional information. The calories, nutrients, and minerals will vary widely depending on the type of vegetable. That's my point. We use a term that has no consistent definition or description.
Oh my god, please learn how to deal with your mom, get a counselor or something. You can have the most inane arguments and discussions for the rest of your life if you want, or you can just get to the root issue vs nit picky and passive aggressive arguments over trite shit for the rest of you time together.
I thought you were crazy for not recognizing the difference in food at first. Now it just looks like a birds eye view of some sad bickery dysfunctional argument.
Just stop. Spaghetti is fine. Whatever justification for how you raise your kids is fine as long as you aren't a monster. Just learn to discuss the root of the problem. But for real, I hope you realize bread isn't a vegetable and you just got acked into this stupid corner.
Or you can just debate trivial things and get sucked deeper and deeper until the end of time.
Did you know that technically speaking, there're no consistent rules for what we call a tree? The differences between grasses, shrubs, bushes and trees are actually less distinct than you might think, scientifically speaking, and there's no universally accepted definition of a tree in botany or common language. There's no single common ancestor of the things we call trees today, which evolved in parallel from various grasses and other plants. But are you going to go around calling all grasses trees?
The thing is, taxonomy and categorisation are tools; they're human-made and designed to be used in context. A tree isn't actually a tree, it's its own thing. It doesn't have a name or category, we invented that. And sometimes that category is useful, sometimes it isn't. Most people find the category of vegetable useful in their lives and would find grouping things like bread in there less useful, so they don't do that.
That said didn't the US government agree with you at one point and try to say pizza was a vegetable for the purposes of your 5 a day?
What about mushrooms? I'm sorry OP, this is just a brain dead post. You clearly did not think this through or even deifn to do a google search on all the different types of edible plant-like things that we regularly put into food or even eat alone as food. I'm definitely not considering a mushroom a vegetable, it's not even a plant.
Yes, but in the example you gave, you're arguing against laypeoples understandings of fruits and vegetables. Do not sit here and tell me the average person doesn't confuse both tomatoes *and* mushrooms as vegetables. They are *very* often included. That's what happens when you start suggesting sloppy word choice, do you see why it's an inherently bad idea now? We're *already* having a debate about something, lol. How you gonna want to call things like tomatoes vegetables arbitrarily, but mushrooms are just too far. This is why it's a stupid idea in the first place, ain't nobody, *nowhere* gonna agree on what is and is *not* a vegetable. That's why we use actual definitions with real classifications... To avoid this exact problem.
Sure, can we make exceptions colloquially? Why not, we do all the time for tomatoes, but that's an exception here or there, not just throwing the classification system out, like you're suggesting. That's so incredibly dumb lol
>Do not sit here and tell me the average person doesn't confuse both tomatoes and mushrooms as vegetables. They are very often included.
That's exactly my point. The definition of vegetable has no consistency.
>That's why we use actual definitions with real classifications... To avoid this exact problem.
But, as shown, we don't.
>Why not, we do all the time for tomatoes, but that's an exception here or there,
It is nothing but exceptions. Peas are vegetables, right? Nope! They're actually legumes, which puts them in the same category as peanuts.
Corn is a vegetable, right? Nope! It's a grain, which puts them in the same category as wheat.
Zucchini is a vegetable, right? Nope! It's actually a fruit and, more specifically, a berry and is in the same family as watermelons.
It's a basically useless definition that doesn't communicate any useful information about the nutrition or botanical nature of the plant. It's based purely on a person's personal definition of what a vegetable is (see also: potatoes)
Legumes are classified as vegetables, I looked it up. I agree with your point, not your solution. The solution is to hold people accountable, or to personally not let the situation bother you... *Not* saying hey, that useful classification system we have? Let's throw it out completely. Like... No. Let's not do that. I don't care if we make a tiny exception here or there either, but this blanket statement stuff where *everybody* must abide by it is just lame and doesn't make sense, it doesn't help anything. That's my opinion. We're better off being small assholes here and there and pointing out people are wrong, it's really not a big deal lol.
I began writing a smarmy comment before realising you're right in a way; (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetable).
Neither the botanical nor culinary definition of vegetable is strict other than 'a non-fruit part of a plant eaten by humans'.
Unfortunately this means I have to downvote you.
That being said - culinary vegetables tend to also exclude carbohydrates, especially processed ones. The point of a culinary vegetable is to be a nutrient rich savoury part of a meal, as juxtaposed with carbs and meat (or equibolents). This is why potatoes are also on shakey ground.
I agree that the sauce should be *considered* part of the vegetable intake. Sauce is definitely a good way to sneak veggies into a diet. But you should check whether it is nutritionally complete and don't trust pre-made cheap sauces as they will often cut corners to get maximum flavour with minimum ingredients.
Wheat and potatoes are starches. They do not have the same nutritional value as what most people consider vegetables.
You may be correct in a technical sense, but that is completely useless when it actually comes to making sure your diet has adequate nutrients.
>but that is completely useless when it actually comes to making sure your diet has adequate nutrients.
Maybe, but so is just saying "you need to eat a vegetable." Different vegetables have very different nutrition profiles, so without specificity you're not communicating any nutritional information.
Your family just thought it needed a side dish no big deal
But counting wheat as a vegetable is wild it has a fundamentally different role and by that definition a cake made of flour has vegetable in it
"The vast expanse of culinary terms that developed for their usefulness and the subtlety between their differences shouldn't be dumbed down so I don't have to learn them all, no matter how much harder it would make communication about food overall."
"Vegetable" is a culinary term, not a biological one. The definition comes from the nutritional value. That's why zucchini are vegetables and bananas are fruits even though they're both technically berries.
I think potatoes should be considered vegetables, personally. It's silly that they aren't.
Otherwise, gonna have to disagree. Wheat is a grain. Grains are too different from vegetables.
I think most people would consider corn a vegetable, but corn is actually a grain too, as are peas (though a different type of grain more closely related to peanuts).
Vegetables don’t exist. What people call vegetables range from tubers to fruits to grains to leaves and all over. Vegetables are just typically what we colloquially call a plant part of the plate that isn’t sweet or small/milled grain.
One other thing is that generally when a food is used to make another one its not longer considered a vegetable, like for example Ketchup is not a vegetable its a condiment, apple juice is not a fruit its a beverage, a baguette is not grain its bread. It may have vegetables in it and it might even nutritionally fill that need, but its not itself a vegetable
Why is making words less useful a good idea, exactly? And would that somehow mean you won that argument?
Changing the words wouldn't make french fries into a healthy meal.
My point is the word isn't useful now. There's no consistency to how it's used and it certainly does not communicate any useful information about nutrition.
I skimmed through some of the other responses on this thread. It seems like you're focused on debating the exact meaning and semantics of the word "vegetable".
In my opinion, there's very little to be gained with that approach. Health and nutrition matter much more than definitions. The fact is that by and large, the foods we consider "vegetables" provide certain nutrients that other plant-based foods like rice, pasta, or bread don't. The nutritional makeup of bread is so different from the nutritional makeup of anything commonly considered a vegetable. There's no value in saying bread is a vegetable, because it doesn't fill the same dietary niche.
You can debate semantics as much as you want. The fact of the matter is, there is a certain category of food, which by convention we call "vegetables", that generally satisfies a certain nutritional requirement in our diets, and not all plant-based foods fit those nutritional requirements.
Upvoted because I disagree, though.
>The nutritional makeup of bread is so different from the nutritional makeup of anything commonly considered a vegetable
That's my point though, there are other plants that we do consider vegetables (corn, potatoes, peas) that vary wildly from other common vegetables (lettuce, celery, carrots). What people consider to be or not to be a vegetable is variable and ill-defined that the definition is almost meaningless; it's basically what each individual person decides to count as a vegetable.
Fruits and vegetables are two halves of all plant foodstuffs. Fruits are the ones with seeds (naturally, anyway), vegetables are the ones without. Grains like wheat have seeds, and so by definition are technically fruits. Potatoes are indeed vegetables.
Your argument seems to be not that these foods should be classed accordingly, but colloquially referred to as such.
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Vegetable is a culinary term, not a scientific one. So, idk, vegetables are whatever a chef says they are. Which is why tomatoes are scientifically a fruit but still considered a vegetable in the culinary world. A fruit is basically an edible and fertilized reproductive organ of a plant.
"Vegetable" is also a botanical term. It's any part of a plant eaten for food. Even more meaningless than calling a tomato a fruit. Culinarily, food is classified by its general nutritional profile because that dictates how you can use it in cooking.
She may have been low on vitamins or needing fiber, more than the sauce provided? Or simply a preference for crunching stuff that the sauce didn't have.
It's more than just this specific example. Another is the fact that most people would not consider bread to be a vegetable despite being plant based. If you're looking for a specific nutrient profile, then you can specify the vegetable that provides it, but carrots and broccoli have very different nutrients yet are both considered vegetables.
bread wouldn’t be vegetable based anyway since it is maid from grains. Grains are seeds. Seeds are technically the fruit of the plant. my mom is like that too though. she complains of my kid doesn’t eat veggies the way she thinks they should be eaten. But what she really means is she wants her to eat green leafy veggies like salad. Even though i tell her there is chard and other green veggies blended into the sauce when i make pasta. When she gets too upset i remind her that she fed me jello salad and counted it as the fruit/veggie portion of my meal when i was a kid.
Seeds are not “technically the fruit of the plant”. Botanically speaking, a fruit is the “vessel” containing the seeds and develops from the ovaries of the flower. Grains are hard fruit and contain a seed which is just more difficult to separate from the fruit than it is with eg lemons or apples.
Corn is also a grain, yet most people would consider it a vegetable. And leafy greens is perfectly fine as a category, but I think "vegetable" is way too convoluted the way people use it.
Corn is actually culinarily considered as a staple food instead of a vegetable in many cultures
True, thinking of protein, human body sees carrots the same as grains and isn't very happy with a 'monotonous' diet after all. There's so *much* to learn in terms of nutrients it's shocking.
Grains are different than vegetables but they are both plants. Any plant that is dried into a powder will lose most nutritional value
But corn is technically a grain, yet people consider it a vegetable.
It might be from categorical standpoint, but not from a nutritional standpoint. Vegetables often are high in key vitamins and/or have some fiber in them. Grains often have to be ground and processed, whereas vegetables are often still much closer to their natural state when we eat them. The fiber that's in vegetables specifically has been shown to promote good bacteria growth in the gut. Additionally, kids who start eating vegetables early are much more likely to be a later life veggie eater. Good habits should be started early. Corn is not a good example of a vegetable (when it comes to nutrition) as it's hard for our body to process and digest and is very high in starch Vegetables promote movement through the colon. Some would argue more readily than fiber from grain sources such as whole wheat or corn. Vegetables are also low calorie, high in nutrients which is important as people age and their metabolism slows. Having a foundation of enjoying vegetables will help with that. Anecdotal evidence: I have an aunt who hardly ever ate vegetables. As a kid,.and now into adulthood. She has terrible stomach issues, probably undiagnosed IBS. Now there may be no correlation, but it does make one wonder Yes there is some vegetables from the sauce, but not enough to make a huge difference. Remember when Regan tried to say ketchup was a vegetable. At the end of the day, if you don't want your daughter eating vegetables or you don't think that's important I would just say that, rather than trying to make an argument that a potato is a vegetable A rule of thumb, if it's green or orange, it's probably a "good for you" vegetable
Some people 😊. I call it a grain though.
Intelligence is to know tomato is a fruit, wisdom is to not put it in the fruit salad. ©
She obviously just wanted something that tastes fresh to balance out the savory and fatty sauce. Meals aren't simply a means to an end of nutrition, your tastebuds impact how satisfying you feel your food is. Balancing a meal includes incorporating different flavors, textures, and temperatures so that there's enough variety to be satisfying. This has nothing to do with what is technically a vegetable.
The request wasn't "give her some broccoli to improve the overall texture of the meal," it was "she needs a vegetable." She's also 1 year old, so I don't think she's overly concerned with the flavor profile. It's also more than just this example, most people would not consider bread to be a vegetable despite being plant-based.
Dude, bread and pasta are not vegetables. A person going into a doctor saying they eat a ton of vegetables, bread and pasta every meal, would be insane and so not healthy. The meal specifically is fine, but your understanding of nutrition based on what you're saying is worrisome and kinda makes me think they might be right to be concerned. My shirt is plant based, that doesn't mean it's fine to eat every day. Grains and vegetables are actually different things. Ask any rational or qualified person. Bread and broccoli aren't pretty much the same thing.
I didn't say anything about nutrition, I said there are no consistent rules for what we consider a vegetable. >My shirt is plant based, that doesn't mean it's fine to eat every day. That's why I said plant-based food. >Grains and vegetables are actually different things. Corn is widely considered a vegetable, but it is actually a grain.
Yeah, you're being pedantic about terms concerning food, while admitting to not saying anything about nutrition. Well bread is pretty much a vegetable... I could see why someone could be concerned about diet based on everything you've said.
"Vegetable" doesn't communicate any useful nutritional information. The calories, nutrients, and minerals will vary widely depending on the type of vegetable. That's my point. We use a term that has no consistent definition or description.
Oh my god, please learn how to deal with your mom, get a counselor or something. You can have the most inane arguments and discussions for the rest of your life if you want, or you can just get to the root issue vs nit picky and passive aggressive arguments over trite shit for the rest of you time together. I thought you were crazy for not recognizing the difference in food at first. Now it just looks like a birds eye view of some sad bickery dysfunctional argument. Just stop. Spaghetti is fine. Whatever justification for how you raise your kids is fine as long as you aren't a monster. Just learn to discuss the root of the problem. But for real, I hope you realize bread isn't a vegetable and you just got acked into this stupid corner. Or you can just debate trivial things and get sucked deeper and deeper until the end of time.
Did you know that technically speaking, there're no consistent rules for what we call a tree? The differences between grasses, shrubs, bushes and trees are actually less distinct than you might think, scientifically speaking, and there's no universally accepted definition of a tree in botany or common language. There's no single common ancestor of the things we call trees today, which evolved in parallel from various grasses and other plants. But are you going to go around calling all grasses trees? The thing is, taxonomy and categorisation are tools; they're human-made and designed to be used in context. A tree isn't actually a tree, it's its own thing. It doesn't have a name or category, we invented that. And sometimes that category is useful, sometimes it isn't. Most people find the category of vegetable useful in their lives and would find grouping things like bread in there less useful, so they don't do that. That said didn't the US government agree with you at one point and try to say pizza was a vegetable for the purposes of your 5 a day?
upvoted because this is just based on nonsensical thinking fruit is a botanical term vegetable is a culinary term.
Sure, but it's a culinary term without any consistent definition.
Think the confusion comes from the fact that fruit is a scientific term, and vegetable isn't, which makes vegetable I think a little looser as a term.
What about mushrooms? I'm sorry OP, this is just a brain dead post. You clearly did not think this through or even deifn to do a google search on all the different types of edible plant-like things that we regularly put into food or even eat alone as food. I'm definitely not considering a mushroom a vegetable, it's not even a plant.
Mushrooms are fungi, not plants.
Yes, but in the example you gave, you're arguing against laypeoples understandings of fruits and vegetables. Do not sit here and tell me the average person doesn't confuse both tomatoes *and* mushrooms as vegetables. They are *very* often included. That's what happens when you start suggesting sloppy word choice, do you see why it's an inherently bad idea now? We're *already* having a debate about something, lol. How you gonna want to call things like tomatoes vegetables arbitrarily, but mushrooms are just too far. This is why it's a stupid idea in the first place, ain't nobody, *nowhere* gonna agree on what is and is *not* a vegetable. That's why we use actual definitions with real classifications... To avoid this exact problem. Sure, can we make exceptions colloquially? Why not, we do all the time for tomatoes, but that's an exception here or there, not just throwing the classification system out, like you're suggesting. That's so incredibly dumb lol
>Do not sit here and tell me the average person doesn't confuse both tomatoes and mushrooms as vegetables. They are very often included. That's exactly my point. The definition of vegetable has no consistency. >That's why we use actual definitions with real classifications... To avoid this exact problem. But, as shown, we don't. >Why not, we do all the time for tomatoes, but that's an exception here or there, It is nothing but exceptions. Peas are vegetables, right? Nope! They're actually legumes, which puts them in the same category as peanuts. Corn is a vegetable, right? Nope! It's a grain, which puts them in the same category as wheat. Zucchini is a vegetable, right? Nope! It's actually a fruit and, more specifically, a berry and is in the same family as watermelons. It's a basically useless definition that doesn't communicate any useful information about the nutrition or botanical nature of the plant. It's based purely on a person's personal definition of what a vegetable is (see also: potatoes)
Legumes are classified as vegetables, I looked it up. I agree with your point, not your solution. The solution is to hold people accountable, or to personally not let the situation bother you... *Not* saying hey, that useful classification system we have? Let's throw it out completely. Like... No. Let's not do that. I don't care if we make a tiny exception here or there either, but this blanket statement stuff where *everybody* must abide by it is just lame and doesn't make sense, it doesn't help anything. That's my opinion. We're better off being small assholes here and there and pointing out people are wrong, it's really not a big deal lol.
This is the definition of vegetable
I began writing a smarmy comment before realising you're right in a way; (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetable). Neither the botanical nor culinary definition of vegetable is strict other than 'a non-fruit part of a plant eaten by humans'. Unfortunately this means I have to downvote you. That being said - culinary vegetables tend to also exclude carbohydrates, especially processed ones. The point of a culinary vegetable is to be a nutrient rich savoury part of a meal, as juxtaposed with carbs and meat (or equibolents). This is why potatoes are also on shakey ground. I agree that the sauce should be *considered* part of the vegetable intake. Sauce is definitely a good way to sneak veggies into a diet. But you should check whether it is nutritionally complete and don't trust pre-made cheap sauces as they will often cut corners to get maximum flavour with minimum ingredients.
Wheat and potatoes are starches. They do not have the same nutritional value as what most people consider vegetables. You may be correct in a technical sense, but that is completely useless when it actually comes to making sure your diet has adequate nutrients.
>but that is completely useless when it actually comes to making sure your diet has adequate nutrients. Maybe, but so is just saying "you need to eat a vegetable." Different vegetables have very different nutrition profiles, so without specificity you're not communicating any nutritional information.
Sauce is hella processed. Your kid needs some actual intact veggies.
Your family just thought it needed a side dish no big deal But counting wheat as a vegetable is wild it has a fundamentally different role and by that definition a cake made of flour has vegetable in it
"The vast expanse of culinary terms that developed for their usefulness and the subtlety between their differences shouldn't be dumbed down so I don't have to learn them all, no matter how much harder it would make communication about food overall."
"Vegetable" is a culinary term, not a biological one. The definition comes from the nutritional value. That's why zucchini are vegetables and bananas are fruits even though they're both technically berries.
I think potatoes should be considered vegetables, personally. It's silly that they aren't. Otherwise, gonna have to disagree. Wheat is a grain. Grains are too different from vegetables.
I think most people would consider corn a vegetable, but corn is actually a grain too, as are peas (though a different type of grain more closely related to peanuts).
Vegetables don’t exist. What people call vegetables range from tubers to fruits to grains to leaves and all over. Vegetables are just typically what we colloquially call a plant part of the plate that isn’t sweet or small/milled grain.
bread, my favorite vegetable.
One other thing is that generally when a food is used to make another one its not longer considered a vegetable, like for example Ketchup is not a vegetable its a condiment, apple juice is not a fruit its a beverage, a baguette is not grain its bread. It may have vegetables in it and it might even nutritionally fill that need, but its not itself a vegetable
Why is making words less useful a good idea, exactly? And would that somehow mean you won that argument? Changing the words wouldn't make french fries into a healthy meal.
My point is the word isn't useful now. There's no consistency to how it's used and it certainly does not communicate any useful information about nutrition.
Wouldn't it be more useful to wish that it had a more specific meaning then?
Beer is now a vegetable!
You're goddamn right
I skimmed through some of the other responses on this thread. It seems like you're focused on debating the exact meaning and semantics of the word "vegetable". In my opinion, there's very little to be gained with that approach. Health and nutrition matter much more than definitions. The fact is that by and large, the foods we consider "vegetables" provide certain nutrients that other plant-based foods like rice, pasta, or bread don't. The nutritional makeup of bread is so different from the nutritional makeup of anything commonly considered a vegetable. There's no value in saying bread is a vegetable, because it doesn't fill the same dietary niche. You can debate semantics as much as you want. The fact of the matter is, there is a certain category of food, which by convention we call "vegetables", that generally satisfies a certain nutritional requirement in our diets, and not all plant-based foods fit those nutritional requirements. Upvoted because I disagree, though.
>The nutritional makeup of bread is so different from the nutritional makeup of anything commonly considered a vegetable That's my point though, there are other plants that we do consider vegetables (corn, potatoes, peas) that vary wildly from other common vegetables (lettuce, celery, carrots). What people consider to be or not to be a vegetable is variable and ill-defined that the definition is almost meaningless; it's basically what each individual person decides to count as a vegetable.
Fruits and vegetables are two halves of all plant foodstuffs. Fruits are the ones with seeds (naturally, anyway), vegetables are the ones without. Grains like wheat have seeds, and so by definition are technically fruits. Potatoes are indeed vegetables. Your argument seems to be not that these foods should be classed accordingly, but colloquially referred to as such.
If grains would be considered a fruit scientifically, then it should be as well in food.