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How Carrots Became the new Junk Food

fastcompany.com

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Re: How Carrots Became the new Junk Food

#31

Post by kragen »

smokinn wrote: post #17
whakojacko wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? I love raw carrots and I know I'm not alone.

I love raw carrots as well but JoeAltmaier pinpointed the reason I don't buy baby carrots anymore: they're slimy. I have no idea why but a couple of years back the carrots started getting slimy and it got progressively worse. Now, instead of eating a bunch of baby carrots as a snack I just take a whole carrot and cut it into quarters lengthwise and eat that.

> I have no idea why but a couple of years back the carrots started getting slimy and it got progressively worse.

This reminds me:

The sigh at the crises of the Brisbane symphony no longer irritated Vashti; she accepted it as part of the melody. The jarring noise, whether in the head or in the wall, was no longer resented by her friend. And so with the mouldy artificial fruit, so with the bath water that began to stink, so with the defective rhymes that the poetry machine had taken to emit. All were bitterly complained of at first, and then acquiesced in and forgotten.

Re: How Carrots Became the new Junk Food

#32

Post by nborgo »

rorrr wrote: post #27
theBobMcCormick wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always loved the taste of raw carrots, although honestly "baby carrots" tend to be some of the most bland and tasteless of carrots. :-(

You realize baby carrots are cut from the regular carrots?

Kind of. They're cut down from carrots that are made to grow as long, thin and quickly as possibly. Not exactly from a carrot that you'd find in your garden. That's not to mention the peeling and washing they go through, which I can't imagine it not changing the taste.

If your point is that "baby carrots" taste like regular carrots, then I have my doubts that you've ever tasted a good carrot.

Re: How Carrots Became the new Junk Food

#33

Post by loupgarou21 »

rorrr wrote: post #27
theBobMcCormick wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always loved the taste of raw carrots, although honestly "baby carrots" tend to be some of the most bland and tasteless of carrots. :-(

You realize baby carrots are cut from the regular carrots?

They are cut from regular carrots, but as the story indicates, the farms mostly responsible for baby carrots changed their growing techniques to make carrots skinny and as long as possible. Perhaps the change in growing technique has also effected the flavor.

Re: How Carrots Became the new Junk Food

#34

Post by kragen »

zasz wrote: post #25
[deleted] wrote: post #21

[deleted]

Carrots don't cause the same insulin spike that candy bars do. Refined and processed sugars hit your bloodstream much more quickly than unprocessed foods. Carrots also don't taste as good as a chocolate bar, so it would still be an epic sacrifice.

You are mistaken.

The technical term for "hit your bloodstream much more quickly than" is "has a higher glycemic index than". Carrots and chocolate bars both supposedly have the same glycemic index, 49: http://www.carbs-information.com/glycemic-index-food-chart.h... while Snickers bars are down at 41.

The reason carrots don't cause the same insulin spike is not that they don't hit your bloodstream as quickly, or any bullshit about refinement and processing. It's that they're mostly made of water and indigestible cellulose, so the total amount of sugar involved is much lower.

Re: How Carrots Became the new Junk Food

#35

Post by Splines »

enjo wrote: post #23
r00fus wrote: post #7

My wife won't eat carrots because they make her allergic (cooked ones are fine)... she only gets these reactions since moving here to the US from France. Since this is a duopoly from the same region (Central CA), perhaps the dropoff in the past few years is due to the carrot quality?

Out of curiosity: I have a friend who had the same allergy... she switched to purely organic carrots and it went away. Does it work the same way with your wife?

I get allergies to them too (plus apples, bananas, strawberries, and a bunch of other fruit). The weird thing is that I could eat all of these things probably up until my early 20s (late 1990s), and now all I can do is stare and salivate.

Re: How Carrots Became the new Junk Food

#36

Post by nooneelse »

noodle wrote: post #14
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #11

I know why baby carrot sales flatlined. Every bag I buy is slimy. Something changed in the pipeline/process and now they are disgusting.

for me, it was more simple. baby carrots are crazy expensive compared to normal carrots. i decided i was perfectly fine eating normal carrots instead.

Indeed, my time while waiting on some cooking process is effectively free to me [I'm already spending it a) cooking and b) listening to a podcast]. So I work things like peeling and cleaning carrots into that time.

Re: How Carrots Became the new Junk Food

#37

Post by zasz »

kragen wrote: post #34
zasz wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Carrots don't cause the same insulin spike that candy bars do. Refined and processed sugars hit your bloodstream much more quickly than unprocessed foods. Carrots also don't taste as good as a chocolate bar, so it would still be an epic sacrifice.

You are mistaken. The technical term for "hit your bloodstream much more quickly than" is "has a higher glycemic index than". Carrots and chocolate bars both supposedly have the same glycemic index, 49: http://www.carbs-information.com/glycemic-index-food-chart.h... while Snickers bars are down at 41. The reason carrots don't cause the same insulin spike is not that they don't hit your bloodstream as quickly, or any…

Hm, good point. Kind of a shame that I got so many more upvotes than you.

The OP's point about carrots being as good as junk food is still bullshit, though.

Re: How Carrots Became the new Junk Food

#38

Post by jules »

whakojacko wrote: post #10
mberning wrote: post #4

I see 'extreme' commercials for baby carrots all the time on local television. They can put all the marketing they want behind baby carrots, there is still one big problem: raw carrots taste like shit. I'd honestly rather go hungry than eat raw carrots, and no amount of cool marketing is going to change that.

Really? I love raw carrots and I know I'm not alone.

With a vinaigrette they are ten times better.

Re: How Carrots Became the new Junk Food

#39

Post by streeter »

noodle wrote: post #14
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #11

I know why baby carrot sales flatlined. Every bag I buy is slimy. Something changed in the pipeline/process and now they are disgusting.

for me, it was more simple. baby carrots are crazy expensive compared to normal carrots. i decided i was perfectly fine eating normal carrots instead.

I stopped buying baby carrots when I found out that they are just big carrots cut down. They aren't picked early or anything. Thus, a lot of waste is created to make baby carrots.

Re: How Carrots Became the new Junk Food

#40

Post by oihujyfgthyjuik »

smokinn wrote: post #17
whakojacko wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? I love raw carrots and I know I'm not alone.

I love raw carrots as well but JoeAltmaier pinpointed the reason I don't buy baby carrots anymore: they're slimy. I have no idea why but a couple of years back the carrots started getting slimy and it got progressively worse. Now, instead of eating a bunch of baby carrots as a snack I just take a whole carrot and cut it into quarters lengthwise and eat that.

When they were a luxury food the baby carrots were actually 'young' carrots.

Now they are popular they are just sections of whole carrots put through a press to cut and shape them. They are basically carrot 'french fries' thats why the end up slimy

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