The history of the carrot’s first cultivation for its storage root can be traced to the Afghanistan region, approximately 1,100 years ago. Over thousands of years it moved from being a small, tough, bitter, and skinny root to a fleshy, sweet, deep pigmented unbranched edible root. The first domesticated carrot roots were actually purple and yellow and recorded in Central Asia, Western Europe, and finally England between the 11th and 15th centuries. Orange carrots were not well documented until the 15th and 16th centuries in Europe. The modern orange carrot familiar to the present day was developed by Dutch growers in the 16-17th century (World Carrot Museum).
There are over 600 known carotenoids split into two classes: xanhophylls (contain oxygen) and carotenes (are purely hydrocarbons, no oxygen). It is beta () – carotene that is the primary carotenoid in carrots and responsible for the orange color of the modern carrot. -carotene is a precursor to vitamin A in the body. Unlike vitamin A there is no reported toxicity of consuming large amounts of -carotene. It has been reported that people who consume large quantities of -carotene to present with orange-yellowish skin due to the build-up in fat tissue, and is reversible with decreased intake.
Vitamin A is essential to eye health and, seeing as how carrots have a large amount of -carotene that can be converted into vitamin A in our bodies, carrots are excellent for eye health in for form of retinal. Vitamin A is also essential to bone health through the involvement of osteoclasts (bone forming) and osteoblasts (bone destroying), cell differentiation, and reproductive processes.
For Sushi and Beyond
-Joshua Foster, RD
Reference(s)
World Carrot Museum. History of Carrots – A Brief Summary and Timeline. http://www.carrotmuseum.co.uk/history.html. Accessed 30 October 2014.