Video narration
When you eat a meal, your body turns ingredients into usable fuel-but where does a plant get its food? Not from a ready-made meal in the soil. Soil can provide water and minerals, but the plant builds its own sugar. Water travels in through the roots. Carbon dioxide comes from the air. Light supplies the energy-not material-and powers the plant's leaves to put those ingredients together. That process is called photosynthesis: using light energy to make glucose, the simple sugar the plant can use for energy, growth, or storage. And what about oxygen? It is not the plant's food. Oxygen is released as another product, passing back into the air. So, does a plant eat its food? No. It makes its own food-using light to turn water and carbon dioxide into glucose, while releasing oxygen.