For lunch yesterday, I had a salad with nuts on it.  Pine nuts and sunflower seeds.  Here's where it gets complicated.  First of all, there are two different naming conventions:  Botanical and culinary.  Botany is the study of plants, while culinary art is all about cooking and eating. 

According to a botanist, a seed is what a plant uses to reproduce.  A fruit is what a plant uses to disseminate seeds.  A nut is both the fruit and the seed.  According to a culinary artist, a fruit is any sweet-tasting plant product associated with seeds.  A nut is any hard, oily, shelled plant product. 

Pine nuts are the seeds of pine trees, and since they can be shelled, they're not botanically nuts.  Sunflower seeds are the seeds of sunflowers, and technically speaking, I only ate the sunflower kernels, not the entire seeds, which in turn means they're not nuts.  But culinarily, both pine nuts and sunflower seeds are considered nuts because they're hard, oily, and shelled. 

So there you have it.  If I was speaking to a botanist, I would say I had a salad with seeds on it.  If I was speaking to a culinary artist, I would say I had a salad with nuts on it.  Since I know neither, I'll never tell anyone anything. #food