As I was questioning whether ketchup was a vegetable, i realized that tomatoes are not vegetable and therefore neither is ketchup. This made me question what the classification definition of a vegetable is. The folks sitting around me could not answer this and so I looked it up. It is as simple and laymen as it gets. Vegetables are anything that are edible parts of a plant that are not fruit or seeds (root, leaf, stem, etc.). This seems to go against most conventions of classifications since okra, eggplant, and tomato are often thought as vegetables. Taking a strict definition none of the above would be vegetable. The term vegetable isn't really a scientific term and most people know what you are talking about when you talk about vegetables but it is neat to see how words adapt to the cultures that use them. How about we just tell the kids, "Eat your fruits AND vegetables!"