After receiving the following forwarded email about 100 times in the last couple of years, I’m fed up with tiny bit of correct information in it combined with lots of incorrect information that leads people to believe that baby carrots are toxic chlorine laden bits of large deformed carrots that are otherwise inedible or unsalable.  What a crock of crap!!

COPY OF E-MAIL  Subject: Fwd: baby carrots did you know this

We used to eat these baby carrots, not anymore!

From the Department of Life Education:

Baby Carrots:

The following is information from a farmer who grows and packages carrots for IGA, METRO, LOBLAWS, etc.

The small cocktail (baby) carrots you buy in small plastic bags are made using the larger crooked or deformed carrots which are put through a machine which cuts and shapes them into cocktail carrots – most people probably know this already.

What you may not know and should know is the following:

Once the carrots are cut and shaped into cocktail carrots they are dipped in a solution of water and chlorine in order to preserve them (this is the same chlorine used in your pool).

Since they do not have their skin or natural protective covering, they give them a higher dose of chlorine.

You will notice that once you keep these carrots in your refrigerator for a few days, a whitecovering will form on the carrots. This is the chlorine which resurfaces.  At what cost do we put our health at risk to have esthetically pleasing vegetables?

Chlorine is a very well-known carcinogen, which causes Cancer.  I thought this was worth passing on. Pass it on to as many people as possible in hopes of informing them where these carrots come from and how they are processed.

I used to buy those baby carrots for vegetable dips. I know that I will never buy them again!!!!

Confirmed by Snopes:

1. snopes.com: Baby Carrots ••••

Are baby carrots made from deformed full-sized carrots that have been soaked in chlorine?

Carrot and Shtick Claim: Baby carrots are made from deformed full-sized carrots that have been permeated with chlorine. They are put through a machine to become small cocktail carrots.

I think after reading this we will all start  making our own carrot sticks out of fresh carrots and keep them in the fridge (a few at a time), right?…

Gosh, how scary!? Are baby carrots no longer healthy?  May as well just give up and eat the chips and candy we really want, right?  Okay, maybe I’m just projecting my own thoughts after I read this the first time.  Then I got a little smarter and decided to not take a forwarded email from someone I didn’t know at face value.

The top 5 pieces of incorrect and/or partially incorrect information in this email:

1) “The small cocktail (baby) carrots you buy in small plastic bags are made using the larger crooked or deformed carrots which are put through a machine which cuts and shapes them into cocktail carrots – most people probably know this already.” Yes, baby carrots are made from larger carrots that are cut down and shaped and are not true baby carrots.  Just like baby corn tastes different than a full size cob of corn a “true” baby carrot tastes different than a large carrot.  I grow carrots in my home garden and I can tell you that a baby size carrot is skinny, long, and kind of bland and bitter tasting.  The expensive baby size carrots in the store that say they are true “baby carrots” are a breed of carrot that is small at its full-grown mature stage and is not a “baby.”

You might now be thinking, “then why do those baby carrots in the bags taste sweeter than the big long ones?”  It’s because those “cut down to baby carrot size baby carrots” are a type of sweet carrot.  Just like there are many different types of potatoes and tomatoes there are many different types of carrots.  Some are sweeter than others.

And yes, some (emphasis on the word “some”) of those large carrots may be crooked or “deformed” but is that really a bad thing?  Not every carrot is perfectly shaped.

That doesn’t mean it tastes any different.  Is the only edible carrot a perfectly straight one?

2) Who is this email is supposedly from.  The “Department of Life Education”……who the heck is that besides some made-up pretend entity designed to make people think it’s a reputable source?  It’s more likely from “dude staring at his computer in his bedroom laughing his arse off because he has people believing the email he wrote one night while dealing with the munchies he got after smoking some weed and while chomping on baby carrots because he had already eaten all the chips and cheesy doodles in the house.”

3) “Once the carrots are cut and shaped into cocktail carrots they are dipped in a solution of water and chlorine in order to preserve them (this is the same chlorine used in your pool). Since they do not have their skin or natural protective covering, they give them a higher dose of chlorine.”   This statement is partially true.  Yes, they may be cleaned in a solution of water and chlorine. But, chlorine is not a preservative.  It is used to kill bacteria which can be present on the carrots.  Carrots come from the ground and are not grown in a sterile environment.  Bacteria can be present in them.  Yes, the baby carrots are peeled which does remove their natural protective covering but that is to make them ready to eat right out of the bag and doesn’t mean they are given a higher dose of chlorine.

Lots of vegetables in the produce aisle have been cleaned in a chlorine mixture.  Google “bagged lettuce and chlorine” and you’ll find that those handy bags of lettuce have gotten a chlorine treatment just like most baby carrots.

If you are still freaked out by the use of chlorine to kill the bacteria in baby carrots, buy organic. Instead of chlorine, citric acid is typically used to clean them.  But before you think you have to spend a fortune on organic carrots remember that if you drink municipal tap water there is chlorine in it and has been an accepted way of treating drinking water for a long time.

4) “You will notice that once you keep these carrots in your refrigerator for a few days, a white covering will form on the carrots. This is the chlorine which resurfaces.  At what cost do we put our health at risk to have esthetically pleasing vegetables? Here’s where the email gets people’s internal alarm bells ringing and has them rushing to their fridge to throw their baby carrots in the garbage (but not to the pantry to throw away their MSG and preservative laden foods).  The white that appears on baby carrots is not chlorine leaching its way to the surface of the carrots.  It means the carrots are drying out.  Don’t believe me?  Take a regular carrot, peel it, and put it in a plastic bag in the fridge.  When it starts to dry out it will get a whitish color on the surface.

5) Then to further drive home the “alarmist” theory in the email there’s this tidbit of info, “Confirmed by Snopes: 1. snopes.com: Baby Carrots •••• Are baby carrots made from deformed full-sized carrots that have been soaked in chlorine?  Carrot and Shtick Claim: Baby carrots are made from deformed full-sized carrots that have been permeated with chlorine. They are put through a machine to become small cocktail carrots. For the real scoop on what Snopes has to say about baby carrots go to their website:http://www.snopes.com/food/tainted/carrots.asp. They specifically state, “It’s not true there is anything wrong with the larger carrots they’re (“they” refers to “baby cut carrots”) made from, or that the resultant vegetables reach the consumers in a chlorine-soaked state.”

Bottom line: baby carrots are not a toxic chemical laden food that will glow in the dark.

They’re still healthy but admittedly not as healthy as a full grown carrot you peel yourself, or don’t peel at all if it’s really fresh-as in right from the garden, because just like an apple or potato there are lots of nutrients in and near the skin of a carrot.

If you are looking for the freshest carrots that have not been treated with anything un-natural grow your own or visit a local farmers market and ask the grower if they use chemical fertilizers in their growing operations.

And, if you are the recipient of the “tainted carrot email,” stop the madness and send it to your trash can instead of your entire address book.  It’s really okay to not forward the email.  Your computer won’t blow up as a result.

So be like a bunny and eat your carrots whether they are baby, big, diced, sliced, shredded, crinkle cut; and whether they are orange, yellow, purple or white!