Vegetables

Salad

Picture Source : Taste.com.au

Spinach

Picture Source : WorldCommunityCookBook.org

Kale

Picture Source : Teratai-Cinta.blogspot.com

Cabbage

Picture Source : Eemoo-Esprit.blogspot.com

Broccoli

Picture Source : FlexMedia.co.id

Tomatoes

Picture Source : OnlineIndo.wordpress.com

Potatoes

Picture Source : KentangPuter.blogspot.com

Carrots

Picture Source : Eemoo-Esprit.blogspot.com

Picture Source : BPKPenabur.or.id

Picture Source : AbdSaleh.blogspot.com

Picture Source : SkyScraperCity.com

In culinary terms, a Vegetable is an edible plant or part of a plant which may or may not propagate into offspring. In biological terms, "vegetable" designates members of the plant kingdom.

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 to destroy certain natural toxins or microbes in order to be edible, such as eggplant, unripe tomatoes, potatoes, daylily, winter melon, fiddlehead fern, and most kinds of legume/beans (such as common beans). 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.

The list of food items called "vegetable" is quite long, and includes many different parts of plants:

• Flower bud

broccoli, cauliflower, globe artichokes, capers

• Seeds

Sweet corn (maize), peas, beans

• Leaves

kale, collard greens, spinach, arugula, beet greens, bok choy, chard, choi sum, turnip greens, endive, lettuce, mustard greens, watercress, garlic chives, gai lan

• Leaf sheaths

leeks

• Buds

Brussels sprouts

• Stem

Kohlrabi, galangal, and ginger

• Stems of leaves

celery, rhubarb, cardoon, Chinese celery

• Stem shoots

asparagus, bamboo shoots

• Tubers

potatoes, Jerusalem artichokes, sweet potatoes, taro, and yams

• Whole-plant sprouts

soybean (moyashi), mung beans, urad, and alfalfa

• Roots

carrots, parsnips, beets, radishes, rutabagas, turnips, and burdocks

• Bulbs

onions, shallots, garlic

• Fruits in the botanical sense, but used as vegetables

tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, zucchinis, pumpkins, peppers, eggplant, tomatillos, chayote, okra, breadfruit, avocado, green beans, and snow peas