Eli5: Some things we buy to eat or spice food are actually seeds… are they ever viable? What about sunflower seeds? Anise seeds or juniper berries? What about the seeds inside fruits?

Question

Eli5: Some things we buy to eat or spice food are actually seeds… are they ever viable? What about sunflower seeds? Anise seeds or juniper berries? What about the seeds inside fruits?

In: Biology

Answer 1

Most aren’t. Anything cooked, roasted, etc? No go.

Fresh fruits and veggies? Surprisingly no, a lot aren’t. If they could breed or modify the seed to be single generational they do. To protect their crop, or more cynically to ensure that they have to keep buying and can’t grow their own copies. Sometimes this is also natural because the germination process requires a step we’d have to replicate, or can’t.

But there are some. Especially something like pineapple you can grow a pineapple plant from, etc.