Summary:
Colored carrots have been around for hundreds of years. In fact, they have lots of beneficial qualities for people including antioxidants, lycopene, and lutein. Lots of information is presented here on this colorful medley of veggies.

Details or Sample:
In most households, veggies go through a lot to pass the test with kids. In fact, it seems as though the veggie meter for kids has hit an all-time high challenge with veggies that come with a twist. After all, it takes a lot to pass the muster required to make it onto a child’s dinner plate. Just exactly what kind of foods are we trying to feed our kids these days?

Colored carrots with a bit brighter hue seem to turn some people off, quite possibly because they haven’t become a regular in the dining world quite yet. It seems as though orange carrots have been around so long that even some adults are reluctant to try carrots with different coloring. In fact, some supermarkets began carrying bags of tri-colored carrots not so long ago in hues of orange, yellow, and reddish-purple. Have you seen them and walked past them, not even wanting to venture into a new and unknown area of fine dining?

The added benefits of adding a bit of variety into your life with a rainbow of carrots are undeniable. From salads to soups to slaws to stews to condiments to entrees to veggie trays, carrots run an interesting gamut across the dinner table. From raw to roasted to boiled to sautéed to stewed to chopped to diced to shredded to pickled, carrots add that colorful touch that brightens the dinner table. From a refined change in the culinary appeal of carrots to the important increase in beneficial quality, colored carrots can be one of the most important additions to the menu in years.

Almost everyone will admit that they have heard that carrots are good for humans. Plus, they have probably even heard that eating carrots provides some benefit to human eyesight. But what do people know beyond that point?

Carrots come in a wide variety of strains, each of them with varying levels of that magical array of ingredients, carotenoids. Carotenoids are the pigments that give carrots their colors, plus they are the ingredients known to provide protective qualities to human health. Even if you aren’t sure about eating a slice of purple carrot cake or drinking a glass of red carrot juice, you cannot deny the advisability of eating veggies designed to improve our health as well as the charm of our dinner plate.

Orange carrots have been popular for what seems like forever, although they have actually only been around for about 400 years. Rich in Vitamin A, an essential vitamin, one full-size orange carrot provides the daily quotient of Vitamin A for adults. Industrialized countries rarely see cases of Vitamin A deficiencies and yet developing countries still have a high incidence of Vitamin A deficiency, resulting in blindness.

The human body actually processes the beta-carotene or orange pigment found in orange carrots to create Vitamin A. However, the orange carrots of today contain much more beta-carotene than the carrots of fifty years ago thanks to the helpfulness of scientists who insisted we might as well get more out of our veggies if we were going to eat them.

Taking it a bit further, scientists, led by Philipp Simon, began about 25 years ago to develop a new medley of this popular root. They worked to create carrots full of a variety of different pigments that were know to be protective of plant fibers. They discovered that these very same plant pigments could provide protective qualities for the human body as well.

Although eating food of a different color than we normally see it in is something that might take some getting used to for adults, if you start your little ones out early with foods of a different color, the transition should be seamless and simple.

Yellow carrots are rich in xanthophylls, similar to and yet different from beta-carotene. However, the pigments contained in yellow carrots are good for the eyes and eyesight. In fact, carrots with a yellow hue are rich in lutein, a hydroxy carotenoid that is noted to prevent macular degeneration in human retinas. Macular degeneration is an age-related disease.

Moreover, yellow carrots are thought to protect against some cancers as well. Yellow carrots were originally grown in the Far and Middle East more than 1,000 years ago. They present yellow coloring throughout the entire fleshy root.

Purple carrots contain pigments called anthocyanins. Purple carrots characteristically keep their orange centers. Originally grown in the Far and Middle East more than 1,000 years ago, purple carrots offer powerful antioxidants that should not be passed up. Antioxidants are known to prevent harmful free radicals from inflicting harm onto the human body.

White carrots contain no pigments, hence their coloring. However, they do contain phytochemicals that are known to have beneficial qualities that promote human health. White carrots date back to the Middle Ages.

Red carrots contain lycopene, a common pigment that many people associate with tomatoes or watermelons. This red pigment, lycopene, is known to protect the human body against heart disease as well as some cancers including prostate cancer. Red carrots have slightly lighter coloration in their centers.

For years, scientists have touted the benefits of eating vegetables in large quantities. Today, humans have even more reasons to include them in their daily diets. Colored carrots offer additional benefits thanks to their colorful hues and the carotenoids found in them. In fact, color preferences in carrots seem to be more a matter of the location where an individual is born and lives than anything else.

However, in order to receive the best benefit from your carrots, eat them raw or gently cooked. Carrots should be dropped into boiling water, rather than allowing them to heat up with the water. Overcooking destroys most of the nutrients as well as changing the flavor of your carrots.

If people can get past the belief that they are not all going to taste like carrots, they might be pleasantly surprised. Most likely the only difference in taste is going to be a direct result of the manner in which the carrots are cooked. Although a minor flavor variation might be detectable- at least to the human eye, it is not enough to merit a scrunching up of the nose.

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