Carrots are rich in compounds that can prevent cancer and heart attacks, lower cholesterol, and improve vision. Beta-carotene is a powerful antioxidant that fights free radicals and is converted to vitamin A, which helps produce rhodopsin for low-light vision. Alpha-carotene also fights cancer. Cooking and juicing carrots releases their nutrients, and eating them with fat aids digestion. Eating too many carrots can cause harmless carotenosis.
Carrots are orange-colored vegetables with green, leafy stems that can be grown in gardens or purchased in supermarkets. The potential benefits of carrots go far beyond their known ability to improve vision. They are full of compounds that have the ability to prevent certain types of cancer from growing in the body. Those compounds also fight heart attacks and help lower cholesterol.
The orange color of carrots comes from the powerful antioxidant, beta-carotene. Beta-carotene is one of the biggest benefits of carrots. Beta-carotene fights free radicals, malicious molecules within the body that cause heart disease and cancer. Free radicals also cause macular degeneration, the leading cause of vision loss in older adults.
Beta-carotene is converted to vitamin A once inside the body. This conversion is what helps improve vision. It is a well known fact that carrots were grown during World War II to help pilots see better at night.
Vitamin A forms a purple pigment that our eyes need to see in low light. This purple pigment is known as rhodopsin and is found in the light-sensitive area of the retina. The increased amount of vitamin A within the body means that we produce more rhodopsin. People with low rhodopsin levels can develop night blindness, making it nearly impossible to drive at night or see in a movie theater after the lights dim.
Another antioxidant that makes carrots so important is alpha-carotene. Alpha-carotene, although not as well known as beta-carotene, has been shown to fight cancer. Studies have also shown that we are less likely to die from cancer if we eat a diet rich in antioxidants.
While most vegetables lose their nutrients when cooked, cooking is actually one of the unusual benefits of carrots. Cooking them for a short period of time causes the high levels of dietary fiber within the carrots to release the beta-carotene from your cells so that the body can absorb it. Juicing carrots also breaks down the fibers, allowing beta-carotene to escape and be absorbed.
Beta-carotene needs fat to travel through the intestinal wall and into the body. Eating vegetable sauce with carrots will help this process to occur throughout the digestion process. It is advisable to trim the vegetation from the carrots before storing them. The leafy top will extract the nutritional benefits and moisture from the carrots before they can be eaten.
Eating too many carrots can cause an unpleasant side effect where the skin turns orange. This condition is called carotenosis. Carotenosis is harmless and can be resolved by not eating carrots for a day or two until the skin returns to normal. This is frequently seen in babies who receive mashed carrots, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin in their daily diet.
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