Baby Carrots: Shattered Flavor & Health Benefits
Baby carrots have no flavor. As someone who had been eating baby carrots for a long time, I had honestly forgotten what a carrot tastes like.
Baby carrots are nice – they are usually crispy and sweet, but they are largely flavorless. They don’t have that carrot-y taste and smell. It’s a tough taste to describe, but it’s very distinct.
There are many varieties of carrots of course, but most carrots that you can buy in a supermarket, the kind with a top of green leaves and visible roots, taste and smell distinctly different than a baby carrot, which doesn’t taste or smell like much of anything.
That baby carrot isn’t so cute. Bigger is definitely better in the land of Carotenoids and Carrot Cake. The “baby carrots” everyone loves have up to 70 percent less beta carotene than regular carrots.
Carrots are one of the best ways for the body to get vitamin A. Our bodies change the beta carotene that is in carrots into vitamin A. Vitamin A affects the formation and maintenance of skin, mucous membranes, bones, and teeth, vision and reproduction.
Besides, baby carrots aren’t babies at all. They’re grown-up carrots cut into 2-inch sections, pumped through water-filled pipes into whirling cement-mixer-size peelers and whittled down to the niblets Americans know, love and scarf down by the bagful.
Baby carrots are not young carrots, but rather small pieces of carrots that are chopped and whittled down to look like small carrots. They are peeled, and washed, and insanely convenient. Much of the nutritional value of the carrot is in the skin and just below that area. This part is peeled away in the process of making a baby carrot.
A fresh picked carrot will naturally whiten with air exposure and age. A picked banana will spot brown and turn soft. These are all natural aging processes of fruits and veggies.
Ever notice that your baby carrots seem to spend an awful long time hangin’ out in your fridge without even a hint of decay?
It seems that the ‘baby carrot people’ who manufacture, grow and sell baby carrots have found a way to halt the aging process of carrots. They successfully stall the ‘white blushing’ of carrots by….dipping them in chlorine. Yup.
Yes, your green gods and goddesses, your precious little carrots are dipped in chlorine to prevent them from turning white during the natural process of “white blushing”.
Organic carrot growers have the same problem with carrots, but they use a citrus based rinse called Citrox. However, the amount used for the carrots is very small.
So pull a Bugs Bunny and eat your big carrots straight from the earth, stalk, peel and all, just make sure they are organic. There are actually many types of carrots!
And if really need them to be super small cut them yourself, you lazy diva. Once you taste the sweetness of a long, juicy, carrot the way it’s meant to be eaten, you’ll be doin’ a carrot dance in your skivvies. Go big (carrots), or go home.
All you need to make your own ‘baby carrots’ is a peeler and a knife and some storage containers.
Cut the tips off both ends of a carrot.
Use a vegetable peeler to peel the carrot.
Tip: To retain the most beta-carotene, use a light hand during the peeling process.
Next, cut the carrot into thirds.
Take one third of the carrot and cut it in half the long way. Then cut that piece into long halves or thirds, depending on the size. Continue until you cut up the carrot. Cut up as many carrots ahead of time as you need.
Store the carrots in sealed containers of water in the refrigerator. Pack the carrots in smaller container or a small plastic bag for lunchtime or snack time.
Want to know more about carrots and baby carrots? Then, click here:
In The Garden With The Carrots! | Your Organic Gardening Blog
Yours truly for great health, mind and body,
Michelle, natural health advocate
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May 28 2010 09:09 pm | Green Living and Healthy Eating
May 28th, 2010 at 11:30 pm
[...] Baby Carrots: Shattered Flavor & Health Benefits | Natural Health … [...]
June 19th, 2010 at 1:09 pm
Nice post.
I learned a lot of information from this post. Thanks for the effort you took to expand upon this topic so thoroughly. I look forward to future post.
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