Awesome Vegetables

People eat a lot of carrots. In fact, over 40 million metric tons of carrots are grown around the globe each year. This video from The Smart Farm shows us how farms keep up with demand for these popular root veggies and the incredible harvesting equipment that yanks carrots en masse. After that, the carrots are washed, dried, sorted, and packaged.

We’re fascinated by the variety of machines you find in factories. This particular device is fairly simple – a couple of rollers and a spinning blade. But it’s the stroboscopic optical illusion that occurs when it spins up to speed that makes it so satisfying to watch. Somebody needs to turn this into an endless loop.

For some reason, makers Michael Reeves and Integza both hate tomatoes. To help them fight against their edible nemesis, Joel Creates set off on a mission to build the ultimate tomato-destroying weapon. The finished TED3 tomato gun works its magic by firing cherry tomatoes at bigger tomatoes.

Grow healthy and tasty greens, fruits, and herbs indoors with the Click & Grow 25. This indoor gardening system uses automatic watering, light scheduling, and biodegradable “Smart Soil” pods to ensure perfect growing conditions. They’re stackable too, so you can grow multiple crops in a small footprint.

Artist Salavat Fidai is best known for his intricate pencil tip carvings. He recently pointed his sharpened knife blade at something a little more edible than graphite, transforming an ordinary carrot into a series of connected chain links. Now how do you link multiple carrots together?

While some might consider it sacrilegious to make bacon out of anything other than pork belly, we still very much enjoyed watching Tabitha Brown’s delightful recipe video for a vegetarian bacon substitute made from carrots, liquid smoke, maple syrup, and other seasonings.

Rapper, actor, and comedian Shama “Llama” Mrema teams up with Andrew “drû” Simmons for the best remake of the theme song from the kids series Veggie Tales ever. Add it to your playlist on Apple Music or Spotify to keep it in heavy rotation.

Great Big Story takes a look an unusual group of musicians based in Vienna, Austria who play just like any other orchestra, except their instruments are perishable, and must be freshly harvested before each performance. Watch a complete concert here.

Chinese artist Ju Duoqi likes to play with her food, recreating classic paintings using precisely diced and sliced veggies. With such knife skills, she’s our write-in nominee for Top Chef.