My husband keeps nagging me to stop eating baby carrots and he has pretty much forbidden our kids to eat them at home, but I'm sure they get them as snacks in school. Last night as I lay in bed right before dozing off, I said, "Dang it! I forgot to put the baby carrots I bought in the fridge." To which he responded, "Why are you still eating baby carrots? I told you to stop." I answered, "Because you never gave me a good explanation about why I should stop." Today, I went looking for an explanation. Are baby carrots evil? Here is the truth I uncovered about baby carrots.
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Originally, baby carrots were made from broken or misshaped carrots, but now the majority of baby carrots are actually bred to be smaller, coreless, and sweeter than regular carrots. That doesn't sound so bad, but the concern with messing with regular carrots is that you degrade their nutritional value with manipulation.
Dr. Aruna Weerasooriya, a researcher and professor of agricultural sciences at Prairie View A&M University explains, "When you look at wild carrots, they have high levels of Thymol, a phyto-chemical that is essential for the body to control bacteria and ward off viral infections. Now, when you look at some of these new carrot breeds, this type of phytochemical just isn't there."
The other concern with baby carrots and the one that most bothers my husband is that in their processing, they are given a chlorine bath. Of course, the chlorine levels are well within what the FDA considers safe, BUT let's keep in mind that the FDA is a government agency that isn't always so quick on the uptake. How long has it taken them to FINALLY admit that artificial trans fat in any amount is not safe for human consumption? I've been avoiding transfats for years and they just caught up. If I had listened to them, my health could have suffered. That's why I may not always want to take the FDA's word on what is safe as far as my kids are concerned.
After learning more about baby carrots, I'm going to follow my hubby's advice and stop eating them or at least do my best to avoid them. It just seems more sensible to buy regular carrots and chop them up into bite size nutricious treats for me and my kids than buy baby carrots that have less nutritional value and are doused with chlorine.
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