5 Unusual Things You May Not Know About Carrots
We are taught from a young age that eating our carrots will help us see in the dark, but there are so many unusual facts we don’t know about carrots. Take a look at 5 fun facts here.
Carrots are made up of 88% water.
Carrots, like cucumbers, contain a lot of water. While you try and rid yourself of that hunger you are feeling by chomping some carrot sticks, you are actually getting mostly water. Not that this is a bad thing, as on average we humans are made of around 60% water.
Carrots come in a variety of colours.
Most of us associate carrots with being orange, and only orange, but you can get carrots in other natural hues of white, yellow and even a deep shade of purple. Strangely enough, the first ever documented carrots were actually purple or white in colour. The orange vegetables we know today were developed after a genetic mutation caused purple carrots, which have a yellow-orange core, to lose their colour and turn solid orange.
Carrots have seeds.
We bet you’ve never thought about this when you last munched on some carrot sticks, but it’s true. How else would we have carrots? The seeds are harvested from the tiny white flowers that grow out of the ground. The carrot doesn’t produce your traditional seed, but rather a schizocarp, which is a dry fruit composed of multiple carpels that separate to release the seed inside. Researchers have even found wild carrot seeds that date back about 5 000 years ago and were discovered in Europe.
Carrots were first grown in Afghanistan.
While carrots are common throughout the world, the first cultivated carrot in recorded history is thought to have come from the area around Afghanistan in around 900 AD. This tasty vegetable then spread to the surrounding areas and by the 1000s was in the Middle East and North Africa. It then made its way to the rest of the world.
Baby carrots aren’t a type of carrot.
While there are many varieties of carrots, baby carrots are not one of them. These small, mini carrots are either immature carrots, hence their small size, or are pieces of larger, thin carrots that are cut into pieces.
Carrots are the second most popular vegetable in the world, after potatoes. At Anat, we love them and serve a delicious cabbage and carrot mix to go with our delicious wraps and shwarmas. Give it a try next time you visit one of our stores!
