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Have you ever wondered where our native carrots came from? Believe it or not, they originated in Afghanistan.

Carrots contain beta carotene, which is an antioxidant and can be converted by the body to vitamin A. In fact, carrots are our best and most abundant source of this antioxidant, as well as containing dietary fibre and potassium.

Because beta-carotene is an antioxidant, and anti-oxidants are important in the fight against heart disease, studies have found that high doses of beta carotene may lower the risk of heart disease by as much as 45%.

However, the same studies also show that high levels of beta carotene taken in pill form, don’t work. Further, a study conducted in the United States showed that participants who ate about 1 cup of carrots a day, reduced their blood cholesterol levels by approximately 11%. This was attributed to the high soluble fibre content of carrots, mostly in the form of pectin.

Night vision.

Do you remember being told that eating carrots helps you see in the dark? Well, while carrots will not prevent common vision problems, if you lack vitamin A then your night vision will suffer. Just eating one carrot every couple of days provides enough vitamin A to counteract this deficiency. Of course, you can always take a vitamin tablet, which will miss out on the benefits of the beta carotene, and the natural high soluble fibre, which lowers your cholesterol.

So are carrots best eaten cooked or raw?

Raw carrots, which are often a popular ingredient in salad, make an ideal high fibre calorie snack food. However much to my surprise, I have found that cooking actually increases the carrots nutritional value, because the cooking breaks down the cellular walls and increases the beta-carotene content the body can use.

Furthermore, because beta-carotene in a carrot is fat soluble, actually adding a little butter when cooking helps the body make the best use of the nutrient. To a certain extent, this goes against instinct as butter is fattening, but in this case, it is the right thing to do.

There is only one drawback to eating carrots. While I am not aware of any reports of allergic reactions to carrots, eating too many carrots, leads to a harmless condition in which the skin takes on a yellow orange tinge. In some people, this can appear as a light tan, but in most people, it is more of an orange tinge. This condition is called carotanaemia and will disappear within a few weeks of eating fewer carrots.

A word of warning though. If you haven’t been excessively eating carrots, but your skin has a yellow tinge, and your eyes also appear to have a yellow tinge, then the problem may be jaundice, which is a liver disorder and you should seek medical advice.

Tags: carrots, heart disease, cholesterol