List Of Fruits With Seeds

List Of Fruits With Seeds are many ways to categorize fruits, such as by appearance, taste, and uses in foods. Some fruits, such as strawberries, are known among gardeners around the world for their contribution of seeds to their fruit. But what about citrus fruits? This article will outline some of the oranges, lemons and limes that come with seeds.

Do All Fruit Have Seeds? (With Lists)

I was told to avoid seeds due to my digestive issues. So I decided to find out if all fruits have seeds. Here is what I found out.

Most fruits do have seeds, but a small portion are seedless. Examples of seedless fruits are bananas, grapes, and tomatoes. Fruits can also be bred not to have seeds. Oranges, lemons, and even watermelons are commonly selected to be seedless by growers.

Now, let’s list the fruits with or without seeds, cover how seedless fruits develop, and discuss why seedless fruits are grown in the first place.

Fruits With Seeds

Here is a list of fruits with seeds:

apples
pears
figs
persimmons
papaya
passion fruit
kiwi
passion fruit
oranges
pomegranate
watermelon

Fruits Without Seeds

You only have to stroll down the fruit aisle in your local grocery store to realize that not all fruits generate seeds. Despite evidence to the contrary, people often mistakenly assume that all fruits have seeds.

A variety of fruits come seedless; however, there are more seeded fruits than seedless. Many seedless fruits develop from seeded fruits. This becomes clear when you compare this list to the above list. Here are some examples of fruits that can be seedless:

bananas
grapes
some watermelons
tomatoes
some oranges, lemons, and limes
pineapple
some cucumbers (yes, not a veggie)

Fruits With Edible Seeds

Some seeds found in fruit can be consumed. Cherries, nectarines, and pears have seeds that are dangerous to eat and should be avoided. In contrast, these healthy fruit seeds can be enjoyed as a delicious snack:

pumpkin seeds (can be consumed raw or roasted)
watermelon seeds (eaten raw, put in salads, or consumed as a powder)
strawberries (usually consumed with fruit)
blueberries (tiny seed ingested with the fruit)
honeydew (raw or roasted)
cantaloupe (raw or roasted)

How Seedless Fruits Develop

Seedless fruits can be achieved naturally or artificially by producing a plant to bear fruit without fertilizing the ovules. This is a horticultural process referred to as parthenocarpy.

Parthenocarpy occurs in nature, but it is a rare condition. Bananas, some types of pineapples, and varieties of oranges are examples of naturally occurring parthenocarpy.

There are two different types of parthenocarpy:

Vegetative Parthenocarpy- Takes place without pollination.
Stimulated Parthenocarpy- Makes use of pollen; however, no fertilization transpires. This pollen can be dead, changed, or extracted from other plants. For example, stimulated parthenocarpy can occur when a wasp takes its ovipositor and puts it in a flower’s ovary.

Man-Made Seedless Fruit Methods

A growth substance can be used to create seedless fruits and can be provided to the plant through a paste, injection, or spray. An example of one of these growth hormones is gibberellic acid.

Gibberellic acid stimulates growth in the ovaries without fertilization. This results in large seedless pieces of fruit. Plant cultivators are currently using growth substances on a variety of different crops.

Another way seedless fruit can be achieved is through a process called stenospermocarpy; however, sometimes seeds are only reduced. This process occurs as a result of seed abortion. For this biological mechanism to work, pollination and fertilization need to happen.

The fruit must continue to develop after pollination and fertilization and produce an embryo. This embryo is later aborted. This results in a seedless or almost seedless fruit. It is important to note that any undeveloped seeds will be visible during this process, resulting in an incompletely seedless fruit.

Table grapes are a type of fruit that achieves parthenocarpy through stenospermocarpy.

Why Do People Cultivate Seedless Fruit?

People often wonder if there are any reasons to generate fruits without seeds besides consumer preference purposely. The answer is yes. There are two chiefs reasons why people choose to grow and cultivate seedless fruit. It’s because they do not have to deal with invasive insects or pollination.

In fact, farmers can utilize healthier methods to protect their crops from nasty bugs if they do not have to rely on pollination to produce fruit. That is to say, chemicals and pesticides are not necessary to treat seedless produce.

Not having to use chemical or organic pesticides is a massive game-changer in the world of organic farming. Without pesticides, farmers can bring healthier produce to market, and with natural growth hormones, their fruit grows larger. Farmers have to worry less about poorly formed vegetables. Also, this process allows for higher crop yields.

Another lesser reason people decide to grow seedless fruit is because of the cost. With parthenocarpic fruit, the entire cultivation process is less costly as compared to farming that relies on pollination. In fact, farming seedless fruit may expand production by extending climate and geographical ranges.

A Review on Food Values of Selected Tropical Fruits’ Seeds

Abstract

Fruit seeds are usually thrown out as waste during processing or after human consumption. Over the years, researchers have dedicated their effort to assess the food and nutritional values of many different fruit seeds. In this review, the research findings releated to the food values of ten different fruit seeds namely, guava, pumpkin, papaya, honeydew, mangosteen, rambutan, watermelon, mango, and durian were discussed. For several fruit seeds, the macro nutrient components such as oil, protein, and carbohydrate of are found to vary due to either varietal defferences or geographical variations. Among the seeds discussed, the range of oil content was from 1.8 to 49.0% while the range of protein content was from 6 to 40.0%. While the high oil bearing fruit seeds are potential new sources of oil, those with high protein content can be used for recovery of protein. As some of fruit seeds are edible and found to possess a host of phytonutrients, they can be harnessed for medicinal purposes. This review concludes that utilization of fruit seeds could not only bring health and wealth but also help to minimize the waste disposal problem of agro-based industries.

INTRODUCTION

Asia is well-known for its rich fruit diversity with over 500 different species distributed in its diverse ecosystem. It has been reported that more than 70 different species of major and minor fruits are presently grown in the region, along with some other promising exotic tropical fruits. However, there are only about 20 species (banana, citrus, mango, pineapple, papaya, durian, rambutan, jackfruit, longan, tamarind, chempedak, langsat, guava, sour soup, salak, passion fruit), which are better known for large scale commercial cultivation. Normally, the tropical fruits such as guava, papaya, mango, pineapple, and durian are consumed in the fresh form. They are generally well-known for their nutritional values, which include vitamins and carbohydrates. Besides this, these fruits are also processed into end products such as jams, jellies, juices, pickles, and food flavors. It is commonly acknowledged that the fruit processing sector usually generates a large amount of seeds as wastes. In the past, investigations were undertaken to explore their potential uses in food applications due to their high nutritional value. For instance, papaya seeds have been used for decades as a vermi-fungal agent as well as a spicy flavoring substance. Owing to their abortive properties, they were also used as folk medicine to facilitate a good menstrual flow. Utilization of the seeds concurrently helps to deal with waste disposal problem, which causes environmental pollution. For this reason, many fruit seeds have been evaluated for specific industrial or food uses such as newer sources of oils.

Oil is one of the important components of human diet since they are concentrated form of energy. Owing to the growing demand for vegetable oils, much interest is currently being focused worldwide on the possibilities of exploiting newer and underutilized plant resources for production of oils. With the new developments in the oilseed industry, the lipid quality and quantity of various fruit seeds can be assessed rapidly. Oil quantity varies depending on the types of seed, their size and shape while the quality characteristics of oils from different sources depend mainly on their fatty acid and triacylglycerol compositions. Apart from their nutritional role in human diet, oils are also utilized as food ingredients in delivering better texture, imparting flavor and mouthfeel in new formulations. There is no single oil that can satisfy all the requirements of the food industry. Since there has been an increasing nutritional interest for healthier oils with higher proportion of polyunsaturated fatty acids, a renewed focus is being given to the utilization of agricultural wastes as well as the utilization of byproducts from food processing. The source of seeds such as guava, pumpkin, okra, and grape are reported to be highly stipulating due to their nutritional value. The objective of this article is to bring an update on the utilization of various fruit seeds as raw material for preparation of food ingredients.

Guava Seed

Guava, a member of the Myrtaceae family, is a crop widely grown in the tropical countries of the Asia and Africa. A quite a number of varieties of guava with differences in the color of the pulp, such as white, pink, red, etc., are grown in these countries. The most popular type of guava consumed by Malaysians is white guava while pink guava is grown for production of fruit juices. The content of vitamin C in guava has made it the richest source when compare to any other citrus fruit. Apart from the delicious taste when freshly consumed, guava pulp is also processed into products to be used in food and beauty care applications. The seeds of guava constitute about 6–12% by weight of the whole fruit. Being round in shape and pale yellowish brown in color, the seeds are reported to contain about 16% oil, 7.6% protein, and 61.4% crude fiber. Owing to this fact, guava seeds have the potential to become a source of oil that can be used in food products as well as supplement in dietary health. Zaini and co-workers made an attempt to utilize guava seed waste for formulation of fiber-enriched biscuits. The oil extracted from guava seeds are reported to possess phenolic compounds that display antioxidant properties such as radical scavenging activity. It has also been found to possess a higher iodine value (134.0 g I₂/100 g oil) with the refractive index of 1.4772 at 40°C. According to the fatty acid compositional analysis (Table 1), total unsaturated and saturated fatty acids in guava seeds oil were 87.3 and 11.8%, respectively. The major fatty acids of guava seed were linoleic acid (76.4%) followed by oleic (10.8%), palmitic (6.6%), and stearic acids (4.6%). According to Prasad and Azeemoddin, it is more or less similar to the fatty acid composition of safflower oil and can become a potential substitute for it. Until recently, there is hardly any attempt to utilize guava seed oil for preparation of food ingredients such as mono-acylglycerol (MAG) and di-acylglycerol (DAG).

Pumpkin Seed

Pumpkin, a member of the Cucurbitaceae family, is a diverse class of plants that consists of at least 119 genera and over 825 species. Pumpkin is popularly consumed as a vegetable since it is composed of several macro and micro nutrients useful for human health. The orange flesh of this fruit is usually covered by moderately hard rind, which even can be used for preparation of soup, purees, jams, etc. The central cavity of the pumpkin fruit consists of numerous seeds, which are flat, oval in shape, and light green in color with a testa that serves as a protectant around the seeds. The seeds are stated to contain about 27.83% crude oil, 39.25% crude protein, and 16.84% crude fiber. According to Soha and colleagues, they are natural sources of tocopherol and trace elements such as zinc. Pumpkin seeds are reported to have uses in culinary preparations mainly in the southern parts of Austria, Slovenia, and Hungary. For example, the kernels of pumpkin seeds have been utilized as additives in some food dishes. Being a food rich in oil and protein, pumpkin seeds are also consumed in significant amounts in these countries as a snack in the form of roasted seeds, rather than a source for oil extraction.

Papaya Seed

Carica papaya L. from the genus Carica has been distributed all over the tropical regions. The varieties cultivated extensively in Malaysia include Sekaki, Eksotika, Eksotika II, and Batu Arang. The flesh of papaya is not only consumed fresh, but it is also a raw material for jam, jelly, candies, and pickles. Although papaya is grown mostly for fresh consumption, it is also used for production of papain and cooking aids as well as medicinal products. Papaya fruit is a rich source of nutrients such as pro-vitamin A carotenoids, vitamins C, B, lycopene, minerals, and dietary fiber. Beta carotene, for instance, is already well-known to prevent damage caused by free radicals that may cause some forms of cancer. Papaya is laxative and a rich source of proteolytic enzymes that help in the digestion. Because of this reason, ripe fruit consumed regularly helps in habitual constipation.

Honeydew Seed

Honeydew, a member of the Cucurbitaceae family, is one of the favorite fruits of Malaysia. Its fruit shape is round to oval while the pulp is sweet with a pleasant aroma. The greenish white color of its rind would become creamy yellow once it is ripened. In Malaysia, the fruit is commonly consumed fresh without processing into products. The hollow center of the fruits is found to contain large quantities of seeds, which are reported to have medicinal properties such as the potential anti-diabetic agent or beneficial remedy for treatment of chronic or acute eczema. Medicinal properties of honeydew melon seed are due to the occurrence of phenolic glycosides in them. According to proximate compositional analysis, the seeds are found to contain about 25.0% oil, 25.0% protein, 23.3% crude fiber, and 19.8% carbohydrate.

Mangosteen Seed

Mangosteen (G. mangostana), a member of the Clusiaceae family, is one of the most widely recognized tropical fruits that has a universal appeal for its quality attributes such as color, shape, and flavor. It is rated as one of the most delectable of the tropics where the pulp is valued as one of the finest and most delicious of the fruits. Covered by a rounded berry and dark purple colored shell, the fruit has sweet, juicy flesh with a high content of sugars. Though slightly acidic, the pulp is generally sweet and delicious with an excellent flavor. The flesh of the fruit known as aril is reported to contain saccharose (10.8%), dextrose (1%), and kerrelose (1.2%). It is also reported to have medicinal properties such as anti-inflammatory, astringent, antibacterial, antitumor, and antioxidative.

Rambutan Seed

Rambutan (Nephelium lappaceum L.), which is known as an exotic fruit is believed to have been originated from Malaysia. Rambutan, a member of the Sapindaceae family, is closely related to fruit species such as lychee (Litchi chinensis Sonn.), longan (Dimocarpus longan Lour.), and pulasan (Nephelium mutabile Blume). Due to its Malay name rambut, which means hairy, it is sometimes called as “hairy litchi.” Rambutan fruit is generally ovoid or ellipsoid in shape and varies in color from pinkish to deep red or reddish orange to yellowish red. Beneath the skin, one could find a large seed, which is surrounded by a translucent, white juicy flesh or aril with a sweet and delicious flavor. Rambutan is usually eaten fresh, but it can also be canned in syrup or prepared into juice or jam. It is also believed to have medicinal properties such as astringent, anthelmintic, or antifebrile and can become curative for ailment such as severe dysentery and a warm carminative in dyspepsia.

Watermelon Seed

Watermelon (Citrullus lanatus Thunb.), a member of the Cucurbitaceae family, is widespread across the tropical and subtropical regions of the world. It is primarily consumed as fresh fruit because of its sweet taste and pleasant flavor. Watermelon seeds have a high nutritional value because of the high protein (25.2–37%) and oil (37.8–45.4%) contents. They are used for human consumption in Arabian and Asian regions as snacks after salting and roasting. Watermelon seed oil has been studied in many parts of the world such as West Africa and the Middle East.

Fruits With Seeds or Pits – And is There a Difference?

There are many delicious fruits to eat, but sometimes you just want a fuss-free snack. Seeds and pits can be a hassle so you may be wondering which fruits you can enjoy on the go.

Or perhaps it is trivia night and you need a quick list of fruits with seeds or pits. Either way, you will find this list of seeded and pitted fruits very useful!

Difference Between Seeds and Pits

There are many differences between fruits and people are curious what the deal is with seeds and pits. While seeds and pits generally serve the same function, the key difference is that pits or ‘stones’ contain seeds.

Many pitted fruits are actually known as drupes. For a fruit to be categorized as a drupe, it must contain one seed/stone or a single capsule with seeds inside.

The purpose of a pit in a ‘stone fruit’ is to protect the inside seeds until the environment is conducive to growing. Once that happens, the seeds are exposed so that the fruit can begin to grow.

Examples of Fruits With Seeds

Popular fruits with seeds are apples, kiwis, figs, papaya, passion fruit, strawberries, pears, pomegranates, watermelon, and grapes.

Examples of Fruits With a Pit

Popular fruits containing a pit include plums, peaches, olives, mangos, avocados, and cherries.