January 29, 2024 – THEME WEEK DAY 1

We’re kicking off a theme week today on the Wiki Corner! The theme is 5 Things You Thought You Knew. I’m sure you’ve heard that carrots improve your eyesight and help you see in the dark, but that’s actually not true! The only people carrots can help see in the dark are those with a vitamin A deficiency. The myth was propaganda used by the Royal Air Force during World War II to explain why British pilots had improved night vision which allowed them to successfully defend the country during nighttime air battles. It was really because they had new radar technology, but not wanting the German’s to know about it, the British intelligence service started a campaign that chalked up the soldier’s incredible eyesight to a carrot-heavy diet.
This eventually spilled over to the Ministry of Food, which put out informative cooking pamphlets on carrots and other root vegetables. Eating carrots was also advocated for as part of a campaign promoting the planting of victory gardens. The British public believed the carrot propaganda so much that in 1942 there was a 100,000-ton surplus from the extra production.
When carrots were first cultivated, they were grown for their leaves and seeds, not their roots. Carrot crops were also purple and yellow. The first orange carrots were created by Dutch growers. Some say that the Dutch created them to honor the Dutch flag at the time and William of Orange, but it’s more likely that orange carrots were favored by Europeans because they were more visually appealing.
Baby-cut carrots have been a popular snack since the late 1980s. They were the brain child of a California carrot farmer named Mike Yurosek. He wanted to decrease waste, so instead of discarding the deformed, broken, or ugly carrots that couldn’t be sold at the grocery store, he started cutting them down into smaller pieces.
Raw carrots are about 88% water. Besides being a great source of beta-carotene, which the body turns into Vitamin A, they’re also a good source of Vitamin K and Vitamin B6. If you want to increase the nutritional value of your carrots, cook them instead of eating them raw! Cooking carrots releases more beta-carotene. Raw carrots only have about 3% beta-carotene, but cooking them can increase that to 40%.
According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, world production of carrots and turnips in 2020 was 41 million tonnes. More than 44% of the world’s carrots are grown in China, followed by Uzbekistan and the United States. California produces over 85% of all carrots grown here in the U.S. Learn more here.