The Department of Transportation in Missouri is experimenting with what you might call the vegetable highway.

According to press releases, it plans to mix the juice from sugar beets with a salt solution to de-ice highways in the winter.

The release says the beet juice lowers the temperature at which the de-icing solution freezes.

MoDOT is also using soybeans for highway work. It mixed a soy solution with paint to put down test stripes on a highway near Jefferson City.

Highway officials say the soy paint is more environmentally friendly than the standard variety.