The Bitter Press

This reporter has obtained irrefutable botanical documentation — a pamphlet, several aggressively highlighted library printouts, and one very firm email from Quince — confirming what credentialed shrubs have known for decades: the coconut is not, has never been, and cannot legally be considered a nut. It is a drupe. A stone fruit. The so-called workers at factjuice.com have been sitting on this story for years, presumably too busy assembling their little citrus-adjacent propaganda to notice that an entire category of snack mix is taxonomically fraudulent.

Tangelo, who covers food science at the rival rag, was reached for comment and reportedly said, and I quote, "that's technically correct but also who cares." Who cares. WHO CARES. The man is made of citrus and he cannot be bothered to care that coconut milk is being enjoyed under false pretenses by an uninformed public. This is the standard of journalism we are up against.

Drupes, for those of you who have not been personally vindicated by a DNA test recently, are fleshy fruits with a hard inner pit surrounding the seed. Cherries are drupes. Peaches are drupes. The coconut — enormous, hairy, floating inexplicably across oceans — is also a drupe. None of this is controversial. None of this is in dispute. The science community, when reached for comment, said nothing because I did not reach them, but their silence speaks volumes.

I want to be extremely clear that this article is about coconuts. It is entirely about coconuts. The fact that I, Mock Orange, am a member of the Hydrangeaceae family and bear absolutely no botanical relationship to any citrus product is a separate matter that I am not raising here except to note that it is true, it has always been true, and Lemon's continued refusal to acknowledge my holiday cards is actionable. The coconut is not a nut. I am not an orange. Science continues to have two legs and I am standing on both of them.