Another prominent member and I (I shouldn't say another, as I'm a nobody here) have been having a solid in-depth discussion analyzing this fella's thread and mindset. My position has been that the thread is an entire hoax / gimmick. An incredibly well thought one at that. Looking at the picture that I quoted was the only one that I had seen, as I didn't go back to the post with all of OPs pictures and ab competition entry (by the way your abs suck, you clearly don't drink enough beer, eventually I'll show you fine folks what a gut should look like).
Anyhow, just looking at that one picture of a basket on a stool on top of the entire Encyclopedia Britanica series, it looks fake (as in he just did it to take a picture of it), as you can see light penetrating the cloth all around, and pretty much at the bottom for the most part.
However this morning, I went back and read the rest of the thread I missed, saw the actual picture of actual plants in an actual picnic basket, and I will publicly concede that I was incorrect about my assumptions of the OP. He is not trolling, he is mentally deficient.