Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Baby Carrots Rumor a Big Phony

I'm sure by now we have all heard the rumor about baby carrots being created by evil people that want to poison us and destroy our lives. I will admit I too believed the rumor... for a moment. Then I remembered that I never take information from the first source I see as truth. I do lots and lots of online research. Before I tell you what I found, here is the rumor (via Facebook of course and unedited):



The "cute" cocktail carrots that you buy in grocery stores come from deformed crooked big carrots. They are put through a machine to become small cocktail carrots. This part everyone knows.

After they are cut to size they are soaked in large vats of water mixed with chlorine to preserve them. The same chlorine you use for your swimming pools and laundry. The reason for this is because they don't have the protection of the skin so they use a good amount of chlorine.

Notice that after you have stored them in the fridge for a while, a white film forms on them... it's the chlorine coming to the surface.

At what cost do we risk our health to have esthetically presentable VEGGIES? Well Folks... I think after reading this we will all strart making our own carrot sticks out of fresh carrots and keep them in the fridge (a few at a time), right? 

It's not strange that a processing plant soaks the carrots in chlorine because it is not to preserve the color (in fact I can not find any information that says chlorine will preserve color). They do this to preserve the carrot not make them "presentable" as is stated in the third paragraph. If you were to avoid these carrots because they are soaked in chlorine that is not strange either. Now if the statement, "it's the chlorine coming to the surface" seems a little off to you, well that's because it is.  If you were to take a carrot you grew in your own garden, cut it open, and place it in the refrigerator, it too would form a white film on the surface of the exposed carrot. It happens because of dehydration and abrasion. So there you have it. Nothing sinister going on here. Although I would say going organic could be the better choice because they avoid using any synthetic herbicides, insecticides,or  chemical fertilizer as well as antibiotics, growth hormones, or medications for animals.  

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