"Is popcorn a vegetable?"

Today, Beth (my co-teacher) and I had an interesting discussion:

She came into the office today and asked me, "Is popcorn a vegetable?" I immediately laughed and said no, and kept working. She asked me, "Why not?" She explained that one of her students had just asked her, and she didn't know the answer. Beth said that because it comes from corn and corn is a vegetable, popcorn might be considered a vegetable. I told her that ketchup comes from tomatoes, but that doesn't make ketchup a vegetable. But then I remembered that tomatoes are actually considered fruits...

Then, Beth asked me where popcorn would go on the Food Pyramid. She said she thought it would go in the vegetable category. I told her that I would put it with grains. Popcorn doesn't start off being corn; it starts off as a seed. The seed is either grown into corn on the stalk, or it's exploded into little popcorns in the microwave...

We went back and forth about this for awhile, and never came to any resolution. When I got home from work, I decided to Google it to find out the real answer. Unfortunately, my Google here is "Google: South Korea" so all of my results came up in Korean. Shocking, right? Some webpages have the option to be translated from Korean to English, but the majority of them are unable to be translated. I gave up after about fifteen minutes of searching.

So, here I sit, wondering..."Is popcorn a vegetable?"