Which part of the carrot plant do we eat?

The crunchy orange part of a carrot that we eat is its root, the part that grows down under the soil. The carrot plant uses its root to store sweet food it makes, keeping energy saved up underground for later, which is exactly why the root grows thick, sweet, and crunchy.

The leafy green part grows up above the ground, reaching toward sunlight so the plant can make its food, but we don't eat that part as the vegetable, and the carrot doesn't even grow a flower until much later in its life, so that part isn't what ends up on our plates either.

Carrots haven't always been orange — many of the very first carrots grown long ago were purple or yellow, and the bright orange color we know today became common later on.