I have had tons of carrot questions come in but one person, (Marvin W. from Perth, Australia) asked a ton of them and since his questions reflect what many of the others of you were asking I thought I would answer his questions today in the Garden Tech Support Tuesday post.
A. The funny truth is that carrots of all colors existed for thousands of years (or longer). The Orange carrot is a new arrival it has only been around for about 400 – 500 years! Many people do not know that, but it is true. The plant pigment that gives carrots and other vegetables their vivid orange color is beta-carotene. Fruits and Vegetables that are yellow/orange in color contain beta-carotene and carrots are one of the vegetables richest in Beta-Carotene. Our bodies convert beta-carotene into Vitamin A. One carrot supplies enough beta-carotene to meet our daily requirement for Vitamin A.
Carrots are orange because they absorb certain wavelengths of light more efficiently than others. Beta-carotene is the main pigment and is mainly absorbs in the 400-500nm region of the visible spectrum with a peak absorption at about 450nm. Carotenoids are one of the most important groups of natural pigments. They cause the yellow/orange colors of many fruit and vegetables. Though beta-carotene is most abundant in carrots it is also found in pumpkins, apricots and nectarines. Dark green vegetables such as spinach and broccoli are another good source. In these the orange color is masked by the green color of chlorophyll. This can be seen in leaves; in autumn, when the leaves die, the chlorophyll breaks down, and the yellow/red colors of the more stable carotenoids can be seen.
So now that we know that there are different colors of carrots, let’s talk about them. There are 6 main carrot colors in existence today – red, yellow, white, purple, black and orange. The first carrots were brownish, white, purple and yellow - not orange. The Dutch developed orange carrots in the 1500s. All modern-day orange carrots are directly descended from these Dutch-bred carrots.
Often the evolutionary history of a species can be found in a fossil record; other times, DNA and genetic fingerprints replace rocks and imprints. That is the case for the carrot, the richest crop source of vitamin A in the American diet, whose full genetic code has recently been deciphered by a team led by the University of Wisconsin–Madison in collaboration with the University of California, Davis.
May 2016 - Scientists have unveiled the gene in carrots that gives rise to carotenoids, a critical source of Vitamin A and the pigment that turns some fruits and vegetables bright orange or red. The new, high-quality genome assembly, which the researchers established for an orange doubled-haploid carrot (Nantes variety), contains more than 32,000 predicted protein-coding genes - more than humans!
The cultivated carrot is believed to originate from Afghanistan before the 900s, as this area is described as the primary center of greatest carrot diversity, Turkey being proposed as a secondary center of origin. The first cultivated carrots exhibited purple or yellow roots. Carrot cultivation spread to Spain in the 1100s via the Middle East and North Africa. In Europe, genetic improvement led to a wide variety of cultivars. White and orange-colored carrots were first described in Western Europe in the early 1600s. Concurrently, the Asiatic carrot was developed from the Afghan type and a red type appeared in China and India around the 1700s.
But carrots are now in the process of becoming more colorful once again. Today, in both markets and seed catalogues, you can find not only orange carrots, but red, yellow, white and purple varieties. With new research that points out the value of the micronutrients in various vegetable pigments, it is undoubtedly good to eat a variety of colors of carrots.
It is known that Carrots were originally purple or white or brown with a thin root, then a mutant occurred which removed the purple pigmentation resulting in a new race of yellow carrots. One thought has it that the orange carrot was specifically bred in the Netherlands in the seventeenth century to honor William of Orange. The orange color did not become popular until the 1500's when Dutch growers developed the mutant vegetable by selective breeding to make it less bitter than the yellow varieties, and then it was said to be adopted it as the Royal vegetable in honor of the House of Orange, the Dutch Royal Family. The first carrots were grown for medicinal purposes, perhaps the medicine tasted good! The main reason why cooks and housewives preferred orange carrots was because they kept their color after cooking and did not leave cookware with an unpleasant color.
A. The simple answer is yes, but read on! The white flower head of Wild Carrot (Queen Anne's Lace) is edible raw or lightly fried. The seeds work well in soups and stews and can be used to flavor tea, too. If you catch these plants early enough, you can eat the roots and leaves. These are indeed wild carrots, the ancestor of all cultivated carrots. By the time the flower appears, though, the root is too woody to eat.
A few words of caution:
Hippocrates prescribed the crush seeds as a form of birth control more than 2,000 years ago, and modern studies find some truth in the fact that the seeds and flower heads should be avoided by women who are pregnant or are hoping to conceive. Also, to the untrained eye, Queen Anne's lace looks a little like poisonous hemlock, which will kill you in an hour if consumed. The latter has a hairless stem and doesn't smell like carrots. (I don't know what it tastes like.) So always be careful when you forage for wild eatables and do not eat anything unless you are 100% certain that it is safe!
Q. Another question Marvin, “What are the potential disadvantages of eating carrots?”
A. Carrots are a potent source of carotene, an organic compound responsible for the rich orange hue of this vegetable. This bright-colored pigment is also present in measurable amounts in an array of plants and fruits like collards, sweet potatoes, oranges, and pineapples. Too much consumption of carrots as well as other yellow- or orange-colored fruits and vegetables may result in the condition called carotenosis, which is characterized by the orange discoloration of the skin. This is very rare but it is possible.
It is crucial to note that the bright-hued carotene, like beta-carotene, is a provitamin A carotenoid which is processed by the liver to turn it into bioavailable vitamin A. Individuals with impaired liver function should check with their physician prior to consuming carrots in excessive amounts as doing so may further tax said organ. Similarly, individuals with diabetes should do so, too, as cooked carrots may interfere with the absorption of medications for blood sugar regulation.
A. Because plants are immobile, they must develop defense techniques against predators and the severe cold in winter, which would otherwise harm or kill the plant. Carrots have developed the physiological response of increasing their sugar content when it’s cold outside. This helps stop ice crystal formations and prevents damage to the carrot’s cells.
Frost can do a lot of damage to a plant cell. It can squeeze and rupture the cells until they are completely demolished. But in some cases, the plant’s defense mechanism means a tastier vegetable for us to eat. When a carrot defends itself from frost, we get the benefit of enjoying sweeter carrots all winter long.
UCLA biochemist Liz Roth-Johnson explains how this works for the crunchy carrot: When it gets cold out, carrots (and parsnips) convert some of their starch stores into sugar. They do this to keep the water in their cells from freezing, and it works in the same way that putting salt on a road keeps it from freezing over. When a foreign substance mixes with cold water, it makes it harder for enough water molecules to reach the surface and freeze there -- so the freezing point gets lower. The cells inside a carrot might have icy-cold water, but that water won't turn into ice.
And that's a good thing. The formation of ice crystals within and around a cell can destroy it. This post-freeze deliciousness will be true of any of the vegetables that can survive a hard frost!