Coconuts are a historical plant. Scientists say it came from the South Pacific, more precisely, it is now in New Guinea. Since the word coconut has a nut in it, naturally I wonder if coconut is actually a nut.
There are a series of articles in this blog about all the berries, fruits and now nuts that are falsely named. So far I have discovered if a banana is a berry, fruit or vegetable and what is a pineapple – berry or fruit.
Time to find out what is the deal with coconuts.
What is considered to be a nut?
The nut is the fruit of various plants (mainly trees), which is morphologically non-native and belongs to the dry fruit. It usually has a hard outer shell and one seed under it. Nuts are fruits that are not “real” botanically. Such as walnuts and coconuts, which are pitted, and peanuts, which are legumes.
There is a theory that nuts are actually fruits. They are defined as dry, single-seeded fruits that have high oil content. They are usually enclosed in a leathery or solid outer layer. In botany terms, nuts are strictly a particular kind of dry fruit that has a single seed, a hard shell, and a protective husk.
So now the real question is – are coconuts nuts or fruits? Or maybe even both, or something completely different?
Is coconut a nut?
Let’s first start off by saying that the United States Food and Drug Administration considers coconuts to be a tree nut.
The federal Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act (FALCPA) requires that all packaged food products sold in the U.S. that contain tree nuts as an ingredient must list it on the label. Therefore coconuts do have to have a description on the packaging that they involve nuts.
Some people who are allergic to tree nuts (like almonds, cashews, and walnuts) are also allergic to coconut.
The scientific name for coconut is Cocos nucifera. The first Spanish sailors called it coco, which means “monkey’s face,” because three dots on a feathered nut reminded them of a monkey’s head and face. Nucifera means “one that carries a nut.”
Conclusion
Due to the hard shell and its name it’s tempting to think of the coconut as a nut. However, it’s technically a special type of fruit called a drupe. It contains its seed within a hard shell which in turn is contained within a fleshy (or in the coconut’s case, fibrous) outer layer.
However some say that coconut is neither a fruit nor a nut – it is a seed.
Truth be told, it is still hard to understand whether coconut is a fruit, but one thing is clear for sure.
Coconut is not a nut!
