Wednesday Whys - Is a Tomato a Fruit or a Vegetable?

Welcome to the first Wednesday Why! The article I picked for today is Is a Tomato a Fruit or a Vegetable? which I wrote for Suite 101.

I actually didn't intend to write this article, exactly. I decided I wanted to write about different types of tomatoes, but do you know how many different types there are? A lot. So I knew I was going to have to narrow it down, but I didn't know exactly how I wanted to accomplish that. So I was thinking about tomatoes, and somehow, the question of whether a tomato was really a fruit or a vegetable popped into my head, and I thought, "Hey, there's probably a good article in that!" And there was.

It was really interesting researching this question, and finding out what exactly defined something as a fruit or a vegetable. And I had no idea that there was once a Supreme Court case about this very question. Or how many vegetables are actually botanically classified as fruit. One of the things I try to focus on when choosing article topics is finding something that interests me, because if I'm interested in a topic, I know that I will write better and that will make it more interesting for other people.

Of my two articles on Suite (the other one, my first, is How to Choose the Right Belt for Women), the tomato one is almost three times as popular. I guess a lot of people have this question too. I also got my first (and only!) comment on this article. That was a serious ego boost. Nothing like having someone else tell you you did good!

What I learned from this article (besides whether a tomato is a fruit or a vegetable) is that in order to want to write, I need to pick topics that either interest me or that I learn something from. I really enjoyed writing this article - more than the belt one. Not that I'm not interested in belts (Look in my closet. I have a whole box of belts!), but they are more an every day part of my life. Tomatoes are something I don't know that much about, except that they are pretty tasty.

I will definitely be keeping this in mind when I pick topics from now on. Pick something new and interesting that teaches me something.