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Vegetables Are Made Up : Short Wave After hearing a vicious rumor on the internet that vegetables aren't real, Maddie goes looking for answers. Turns out, vegetables are a mere culinary construct. Still healthful and delicious, but a kinda mythic category of food. With the help of Harvard botanist Molly Edwards, Maddie and Emily break down our favorite foods from broccoli to zucchini.

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Short Wave

Yep, We Made Up Vegetables

Yep, We Made Up Vegetables

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Brassica oleracea is a plant species that includes broccoli--as well as kale, cauliflower, collard greens and brussels sprouts. Inti St Clair/Getty Images/Tetra images RF hide caption

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Inti St Clair/Getty Images/Tetra images RF

Brassica oleracea is a plant species that includes broccoli--as well as kale, cauliflower, collard greens and brussels sprouts.

Inti St Clair/Getty Images/Tetra images RF

After hearing a vicious rumor on the internet that vegetables aren't real, Maddie goes looking for answers. Turns out, vegetables are a mere culinary construct. Still healthful and delicious, but a kinda mythic category of food. With the help of Harvard botanist Molly Edwards, Maddie and Emily break down our favorite foods from broccoli to zucchini.

Take our survey! Tell us what you love and what you would love to see more of — on our show, and also other NPR podcasts.

Email the show at shortwave@npr.org.

This episode was produced by Thomas Lu, fact-checked by Indi Khera and Rasha Aridi and edited by Gisele Grayson. The audio engineer was Neil Tevault.

Correction June 24, 2021

An earlier version of this episode said that Brussels sprouts came from auxiliary buds. They actually come from axillary buds. The audio has been updated.