Bento is the Japanese equivalent to the American bagged lunch, but it’s also an art form in itself, and is strongly integrated into Japanese culture. Bento is a lunch turned into a scene or portrait, all within the confines of a small box, and created out of edible materials.

(Images via womansday, flavoreddelights, digeratilife)

Oekakiben is a style of bento called picture bento, that involves creating a scene or depicting animals out of the meal. Above, we see three little pigs, a frog, and an incredibly detailed depiction of Canadian geese.

(Images via japanpowered, sparklemag, fudology, walyou, mariomayhem)

Kyaraben bento typically refers to bento that depicts characters from popular cartoons, films, or video games. The images above are all from video games, including a Playstation controller, a portrait of Mario, the Big Daddy character from the Bioshock series, Pac Man ghosts, and even Pac Man himself! The collection is rounded out with Yoshi and Kirby.

(Images via geekartgallery, instructables, geekadelphia, thatsnerdalicious)

Star Wars has fans across the globe, and thankfully some fans spent the time to create these beautiful depictions of scenes and characters from the films. A Jawa with Tattooine’s twin suns framed in the background, is followed by a TIE fighter and an Imperial Stormtrooper (with the Death Star over his shoulder). A surprisingly accurate noodle Chewbacca  gives the Rebellion an appearance.

(Images via animatrixnetwork, femtalks, cutestfood)

These characters come from children’s books and movies. It’s amazing how much one can accomplish with a bit of rice and carefully placed edible odds and ends. A  giant Totoro from Hayao Miyazaki’s film My Neighbor Totoro and Pooh bear from the best selling children’s book series (and television, and film) are alongside the monstrous characters found in Where the Wild Things Are.

(Images via myspace, oneinchpunch, lostateminor, neatorama)

A lot of bento is made for children’s lunches at school, so their is a natural trend towards anime and cartoon characters. This series depicts a Pokemon character, the world-famous Homer Simpson, Astro Boy, and Stitch, from the popular kids’ movie, Lilo and Stitch.

(Images via japanpowered, sake-bento, japanpowered, toxel, sodelicio)

There are bento competitions where people attempt to create the most aesthetically pleasing (or creative) bento boxes. These amazingly detailed bento would likely win any prize. While these particular bento share a high skill level, they vary wildly in their subject matter: a  famous Japanese painting is reproduced in stunning detail, a panda is depicted curled up in the box, and a woman spends  her day at a spa. A fully realized cat lies on its back, ready to play, while the much less cute portraits of a man and a zombie fill their own boxes.

As the fear of the obesity epidemic rises, food is seen more an more as simply something one has to cut back on. Lunch is no longer a joyful time to cherish, but a disappointing time spent in front of a microwave. Not everyone has succumbed to this despair, however, and a lot of people are compensating for smaller, healthier, portions, with beautiful aesthetics. Here are 10 beautiful and mystifying artworks made out of cuisine:

(Images via modes4u, lostateminor, neatorama, twolia)

Bento boxes are single portion takeouts and home prepared meals that are extremely popular in Japanese culture. Some people take it very seriously, and love to turn an otherwise mundane preparation into an applause worthy artistic expression. One can only imagine how difficult it would be to start chowing down if your microwave meal was being oohed and aaahed as much as one of these preparations would be.

(Images via neatorama, slashfood, wonderhowto, cadbury)

Chocolate portraits are an increasingly popular artistic expression. The concentration here is on appearance, not taste, so they may not taste as great as you’d think, but they certainly are eye-catching. Chocolate has the advantage of coming in a variety of colors and hues, and being both malleable and hard enough to maintain its form. Through sculpture and careful pouring and manipulation, chocolate artists can create incredibly realistic depictions.

(Images via pixdaus, jorymon)

Nothing spices up a pot luck like strategically arraying your food into a classic painting or character portrait. Such simple and intriguing displays are a bit inspiring. How much harder would it be to add a few distinctive features to your otherwise mundane dish? You may not want to tackle the Mona Lisa the next time you set out cheese and crackers, but a nice smiley face never hurts.

(Images via obesityhelp, popfi, funnypictures, guardian)

Some believe that higher powers work in mysterious ways… whether these are examples of this, or just fortuitous coincidence, is hard to say. Regardless of the source of these inspirational portraits, nobody can deny they’re intriguing. The phenomenon of seeing Jesus’ face in random food products (like the cheeto, naan, potato chip, and fish stick pictured above), isn’t constrained to the food itself:

(Images via bitchspot, popfi)

Household items can showcase unearthly portraits as easily as a potato chip. Whether you find excitement over these occurrences ridiculous or spiritual, they’re definitely interesting.

(Images via guardian, amandamorrow, popularasians, chilloutpoint)

Sushi is delicious, and no one will argue that the taste of a good sushi roll can be affected by the artistry of its creation, and its appearance on the plate. There are some who take this to an extreme. A portrait of President Obama and the face of a friendly panda may have been the inspiration for a sushi vinyl toy that does not look happy to be on the plate.

(Images via foundshit, geekologie, break4fun, insomniadiaries)

Meat is something a lot of people like to eat, and it’s also something a lot of people don’t like to think about. Whether you’re a meat lover or not, the above sculpted artworks are a bit nauseating, and very unique. After taking a look at this assemblage of strange sculptures, it will be hard to see a muscle car the same way again.

(Images via panric, pxleyes, saufnase)

For artists with a photographic and technological bent, food is more enjoyable to manipulate with photoshop. Mixing and matching different objects in entertaining and shocking ways is a great way to catch someone’s attention and show off your skills with photo manipulation.

(Images via rockstartemplate, humor-articles, unstructured musings, weirdspy)

Artists choose a variety of strange materials, and food is no exception. Some artists love taking the everyday and turning them into something more powerful. A good photo changes an otherwise temporary piece of art into something that can brighten up someone’s day for as long as the internet is around.

(Images via philagrafika, hackedgadgets, blisstree)

Toast is the foundation for any good breakfast, in television commercials, and in the average home. One might say toast is both the most common and most boring part of breakfast, but new technology aims to change that. Possibly inspired by the faces of Jesus that kept appearing on slices of bread, some engineers put together a toast printer that can imprint any image you’d like onto a piece of white or wheat. Some versions work like a real printer with the bread as paper, while others use an external tool to burn the decorations. However it’s done, it sure seems like a lot of fun!

As humans, food is any substance we consume for nutrition or even pleasure. It’s diversified across cultures through varying methods of cooking, preparation, and ingredients. But what if food was used as a medium for art? Here are 32 incredible examples of creative food design, food sculpture, and edible art.

Make Me a Sandwich.

(images via textually, Kitsa Sakurako, popluxe, like cool)

Bread has been consumed with other foods since Neolithic times, and the sandwich has evolved dramatically throughout different regions of the world. Starting at the top left is a sandwich in the shape of Wall-E, from the popular Disney Pixar movie of the same name. Remember the Rubix cube? This sandwich is constructed into the form of the famous puzzle with toast, ham, cheese, and salami cubes. Below that, little cell phone and Vespa sandwiches; not sure how well they function really, but I’d be happy to have yours. A little girl crafted the large sandwich in the middle to be a Witch, which is clever, but I’m seeing Chewbacca. Sandwiches with an attitude are all the rage, seen on the right mid and bottom, created with just a simple variation in how they’re cut! On the bottom left, this little mouse was created simply with parsley, a hot dog and edamame.

Edible Sculpture

(images via Jim Victor, Americade)

Heading farther away from the usual edible fare, we find some pretty amazing food sculptures. Up in the top left is a cheddar cheese likeness of two little boys with a cow, and to the right is a recreation, in butter, of the children’s rhyme “Hey Diddle Diddle”; they’re both very large in person. In the middle is a butter sculpture of a farm scene featured at a county fair. The three sculptures at the bottom are carved from watermelons, and are more popular in China than carving pumpkins! There are many in the collection, but depicted here are Van Gough, The Discobolus of Myron and a Sumo Wrestler.

Bento, desu!

(images via Kitsa Sakurako, slashfood, photoschizo)

Remember those brown paper-bag lunches your mom used to send to school with you? Well, Bento is Japan’s answer to that. A single-portion home-packed meal, Bento often consists of rice, fish, or meat, a side, and can be decorated in some pretty creative ways. The beautiful Bento at top left is actually made with red bell pepper and mashed potatoes mixed with food dye, creating a dreamy, oil-painted look. The kitten Bento is just too cute to leave out, it was created simply with rice and seaweed accents. Finding Nemo comes to mind when viewing the middle Bento box, created with the traditional ingredients of rice and seaweed, as well as the non- with Fruity Pebbles for the gravel. Looking at the ladybug, one would have to look twice to see that it’s really a halved tomato with cheese, on a bed of greens. The Eiffel Tower Bento is lovely, formed with sliced cheese, food dye on the rice, grape nuts for the gravel and vegetables for the bushes. Could you bring yourself to eat these?

Yes We Can

(images via The Epoch Times, mrstu, Canstruction)

At first glance these don’t look like food, but upon closer inspection you’ll see that these sculptures are made of canned food! With the creative eye of teams of architects, engineers and students, the structures take 8-12 weeks and thousands of cans to craft. Canstruction is actually a contest in which teams build these exceptional sculptures entirely out of canned food. At the close of the contest and exhibitions, all of the cans used are donated to local food banks, and are further distributed to shelters, pantries, soup kitchens, day care centers, and the elderly. This has been going on for years, and in sifting through the gallery, the Grand Piano, light bulb, Etch-A-Sketch, Orca Whale and Crayon Box evoled as my favorites. The face is reminiscent of a Pinhead Toy, and the effect is unforgettable. An original food art concept with a great cause!

Chocolat

(images via Food is Art)

Here we see that chocolate comes not only in dark, milk and white, but paintings, furniture and shoes as well! To celebrate the re-release of Smarties chocolate candies in the UK, they created an amazing gallery of Smarties art. Top left is a Warhol reproduction of Marilyn Monroe, while at bottom we have an exquisite rendition of Seurat’s “Bathers”. Marilyn Monroe seems to be a common theme; she’s painted in a chocolate portrait at mid right as well. Food artist Prudence Emma Staite created all of these masterpieces, including the life-sized shoes at top right. She even takes custom orders on her website, and can recreate any style of shoe. I wouldn’t recommend sporting them though. The piece de resistance would have to be the room of chocolate furniture. Staite also takes orders for these complete chocolate rooms, inspired by the children’s take of Hansel and Gretel, and they can feed over 500 people. How about that for form meeting function?

Mmmmmmeme

(images via kickintheheadcomic)

So apparently food comes Internet-Meme style now. These tasty treats recreate the famous Awesome Smiley, and are made of rice, egg, seaweed, cheese and ham. My favorite food art by far is cooked up through the creative minds at PES. The video below is a fascinating stop motion short entitled “Game Over” (mimicking arcade games like Pac Man and Frogger) and making very good use of food like pizza, muffins, pretzels, and eggs.

Food satisfies the body and soul, it’s one of the few common threads among all the world’s cultures. As you can see from the many inventive displays here though, it seems that some of us never really learn to stop playing with our food.