The Myth of the Baby Carrot!

I was having a conversation with a friend and she starts to tell me how she only likes baby carrots and not regular carrots. To this I respond, wow that is interesting, considering that baby carrots are regular carrots, but they are cut up and shaped. She did not believe me...

In her mind I believe somewhere there is a baby carrot field, where tiny perfectly shaped carrots grow. In reality this is not the case.

Granted there are varieties of small carrots that have been harvested early, but these are not the uniformly shaped, bright orange carrots everyone eats. This type of carrot would be generally served with the plant part still attached and steamed.

So once and for all, let me dis spell the myth.

Baby carrots are regular carrots!

They are usually made from oddly shaped, less aesthetically pleasing carrots, that are peeled and cut into the uniformly shaped carrots you see in plastic in the grocery store. The carrots in some cases have been bred or genetically modified to have their bright orange color, sometimes to be sweeter, and be larger from the start with uniform size all the way through the carrot. After they are cut they are soaked in some sort of antimicrobial substance such as chlorine to keep them fresh and from developing a film in the package.

So there you have it!

What is my opinion of baby carrots? Well, a good deal of the nutrients are in the peel of the carrot, which is clearly gone in the baby carrot situation. Also they lose nutrients in the soaking processes, and whether those antimicrobial processes are doing anything to them or adding something you do not want to ingest, I am not sure. But for every day a carrot is out of the ground it is losing nutrients. So you are better off to eat regular carrots from that perspective, there is no processing time, you are likely to get them sooner.