Factors Affecting the Colour of Carrots

1. Temperatures above and below the optimum (above 70° and below 60°F) reduce the colour of carrots.

2. Spring and summer carrots are often of better colour than autumn and winter.

3. Carrots grown on sandy soils and soils high in organic matter produce a higher colour than did carrots on silt loams.

4. Excessive water decreases the colour.

5. Reducing the number of daylight hours has reduced the colour.

Colour is more intense in the older portions of the root.

It decreases from the epidermis and centre toward the cambium, and from the top to the bottom.

Studies have been carried out in the USA on the differing properties of different coloured carrots.

Orange Carrots contain beta carotene, with some alpha-carotene, both of which are orange pigments. High in Vitamin A essential for well-being, healthy eyes. These carrots originate from Europe and the Middle East.
Yellow carrots contain xanthophylls and lutene, pigments similar to beta carotene, which help develop healthy eyes aid in the fight against macular degeneration and may prevent lung and other cancers and reduce the risk of astherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries). These came from the Middle East.
Red carrots are tinted by lycopene, (another form of carotene) a pigment also found in tomatoes and watermelon; lycopene is associated with the reduced risk of macular degeneration, serum lipid oxidation, helps prevent heart disease and a wide variety of cancers including prostate cancer. Originally from India and China.
White carrots lack pigment, but may contain other health-promoting substances called phytochemicals, natural bioactive compounds found in plant foods that work with nutrients and dietary fibre to protect against disease. One might say these are the least healthy of carrots. They originate from Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan.
Purple carrots (usually orange inside) have even more beta carotene than their orange cousins, and get their pigment from an entirely different class, the anthocyanins, these pigments act as powerful antioxidants, grabbing and holding on to harmful free radicals in the body. Anthocyanins also help prevent heart disease by slowing blood clotting and are good anti inflammatory agents. These originate from Turkey, and the Middle and Far East. (See also the purple carrot page)
The Purple Haze variety have a more purple/red and white centre.
Black Carrots contain anthocyanins, part of the flavonoid family with antioxidant properties. Flavonoids are currently under investigation as anticancer compounds, as free radical scavengers in living systems, as well as inhibitors of LDL (the bad) cholesterol and the black carrot anthocyanins are especially active. It has anti-bacterial and anti-fungicidal properties and oil made from its seed can help control scalp itchiness and provides essential nutrients for hair growth. The ancient black carrot has been making a comeback, not so much for culinary purposes but as a source of natural food colorants. These originate from Turkey, and the Middle and Far East.

KIDS!! Follow the rainbow to good health and see what nutrients are contained in various colours of common fruit and vegetables - here.

The Sea Carrot In the British Isles the only carrot species to grow in the wild is the sea carrot (Daucus Carota Gummifera). This hairy plant has thick set stems and flat compact umbels with a lilac tint. The Sea Carrot only grows in the southern counties of England, usually near the sea, where it may be locally abundant.   It flowers from May to September and grows to a height of 30 centimetres.

Around the World

China is Carrot production King of the World , the US ranks among the other top nations in the production of carrots: fourth in acreage and volume, third in terms of yield (31.7 tons/ha). Russia, Japan, France and the United Kingdom are also leading producers. World wide 13.37 million tons were produced in 1990, a 30% increase over the past decade.
Carrot consumption in the US increased sharply in the 1990s, from about 10 pounds a person per year to 14 pounds. Kern county, California dominates US carrot production, and two firms control 90 percent of California fresh carrots--most growers produce carrots under contract for these firms.

Texas, Wisconsin, and Minnesota are also large producers. Quite a few also emanate from Holtville, California which dubs itself "The Carrot Capital of the World."   Learn about the Annual Carrot Festival (and others) by clicking here.

Carrots are ninth (out of twenty eight) among vegetable crops in the US. Average value of commercial crop is about $70,500,000 per year based on fresh-market and processed carrots, accounting for about 875,000 tons of carrots. (1979 figures)

The largest carrot producer in the world is Grimmway Carrots in California.

World production of carrots in the mid-1990s exceeded 14 million metric tons annually.

In Europe the UK has the highest production with 750,000 tons per year. Next come France (568k), Netherlands (476k) and Italy (407k) others large producers include Poland and Germany.

Poland has an important place in European production of vegetables. In production of cabbage and carrot we have the first place in Europe (tab. 1) and as much as 20% of the total vegetable production of Europe consists of cabbage and about 18% of carrots produced in Poland. Comparing to the total world production of vegetables the share of polish cabbage amounts about 5% and that of carrots slightly above 5%. Read more here.

Carrots are also grown on a large scale in Australia.  In 1999, 267,000 tonnes of carrots were produced from about 7,500 hectares. Click here to see the Australia page.  There is also an Australian Carrot, which is native.
Another good Australian website - The wonderful world of Carrots. Also Western Oz statistics
See also the Florida Carrot website Find out more here.
Read about Texas carrots here .
Tasmania also has a healthy organic carrot industry, its website is here.

New Zealand here.

Saskatchewan here.

More about carrot production in India here.    Traditional Medicinal Uses for Carrot and its seeds around the world (pdf).

John's visits to carrot producers/packers:

Potts Master Bakers - John had the privilege of having a personal guided tour of the leading baker of organic carrot cake, supplied to major supermarkets in the UK.  It is, naturally, based in Yorkshire!  Not only does it supply the trade, but also larger shops, restaurants and hotels.  Quite an operation!

Huntapac - John also took a personal guided tour of Huntapac one of the leading carrot packers in England and suppliers to the major supermarkets in the UK.

Metcalfe Organic supplies a wide ranging market including the NHS 5 a Day Scheme, Morrison's supermarkets, local boxed vegetable schemes, whole foods stores and food processing plants around the region.

Poskitts, one of the leading supermarket suppliers.

Cooks carrots in Lancashire supply many wholesale market, processing plants and local shops with their top quality produce - .

Another well respected carrot grower in Britain is P Caunce & Son at Brow Farm. at Brow Farm (yet to be visited!).

Events

The Carrot Museum Road Show has had exhibitions at the Royal Horticultural Society, Harlow Carr Gardens for the past two years. Visit the dedicated pages here.

Talks to schools, local societies and institutions are given on a regular basis, please e-mail the Museum if you would like a show or talk about carrots.

The Future - A Rainbow Carrot?

How do you get people to eat more carrots? You excite their senses. Surprise them, say, with unexpected colour and explosive flavour. It’s a worthwhile tack to take, says Philipp Simon, plant geneticist at the Vegetable Crops Research Unit in Madison, Wisconsin. He should know. Simon, who heads the ARS laboratory on the University of Wisconsin campus, helped elevate the humble carrot to its current prestigious position. Thanks to work he did with colleagues more than 25 years ago, the carrot is now an even better source of dietary vitamin A.

Using classical breeding methods, they helped boost the veggie’s already abundant stores of beta-carotene by 75 percent. Beta-carotene is what our bodies use to make all-important vitamin A, which is crucial for good eye health and a strong immune system. It’s also responsible for the carrot’s orange hue.

Simon would like to sneak in other nutrients too. That’s why, several years ago, he got to wondering: Why settle for just orange? After all, 700 years ago Western Europeans were feasting on carrots that ranged in colour from lemon-yellow to burgundy to purple. We can have the same variety today—and the healthful antioxidants associated with those brightly coloured pigments.

In addition to breeding yellow, red, deep-orange, purple, and even white carrots, Simon aims to create a “rainbow” carrot - a multi-pigmented root that naturally contains several antioxidants, such as lycopene, lutein, and anthocyanin.

Fuel for Cars?

Scientists now believe that bio fuels will be the answer to our energy needs when the oil runs out. One such fuel, perhaps within 10 years, will be carrots - it would take approximately 6000 carrots to drive one mile.
 

NEWS

Scientists unveil New 'super carrot' (from the BBC, Spring 2008)

The new carrot could ward off osteoporosis Scientists in the US say they have created a genetically-engineered carrot that provides extra calcium. They hope that adding the vegetable to a normal diet could help ward off conditions such as brittle bone disease and osteoporosis. Someone eating the new carrot absorbs 41% more calcium than if they ate the old, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences study suggests.

The calcium-charged vegetable still needs to go through many safety trials. "These carrots were grown in carefully monitored and controlled environments," said Professor Kendal Hirschi, part of the team at the Baylor College of Medicine in Texas. Much more research needs to be conducted before this would be available to consumers Professor Kendal Hirschi Baylor College of Medicine "Much more research needs to be conducted before this would be available to consumers." But the scientists nonetheless hope their carrot could ultimately offer a healthier way of consuming sufficient quantities of the mineral.

Dairy foods are the primary dietary source of calcium but some are allergic to these while others are told to avoid consuming too much due to their high fat content. A gene has been altered in the carrot which allows the calcium within it to cross more easily over the plant membranes. On its own, the carrot would not meet the daily requirement of 1,000mg of calcium, but if other vegetables were similarly engineered, intake could be increased dramatically.

It is not the first time the carrot has been tampered with. The orange colour we know is the result of Dutch cultivation in the 17th Century, when patriotic growers turned a vegetable which was then purple into the colour of the national flag. Nor is it the first vegetable to receive a healthy make-over. Genetic engineering is being used to develop potatoes with more starch and less water so that they absorb less oil when fried, producing healthier chips or crisps. Work is also being carried out on broccoli so that it contains more sulforaphane, a chemical which may help people ward off cancer.

Professor Susan Fairweather-Tait of the University of East Anglia said genetically engineering foods to increase their nutrient content was becoming an increasingly important avenue. "People are being told to eat more modestly to prevent weight gain, and many diets now no longer contain everything we need. "There has been great resistance to genetic engineering, but gradually we are moving away from the spectre of 'Frankenstein food' and starting to appreciate the health benefits it may bring."

Great news!!

Hopefully, there will be inexpensive retrofits for older cars to convert to alternative fuels. It could cause a whole new problem if used cars started filling up junk yards because everyone decided to buy carrot fuelled cars.

Also!!

Researchers have created a new genetically engineered carrot that has 41 percent more calcium than the regular carrot, reports a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Altering a gene boosts levels of transporter proteins, which pump calcium from the soil into the plant. This kind of technology could help combat conditions like osteoporosis. The carrots may become available within three to five years (from 2008) .  Read more here

Standard Carrots - “This marks a new dawn for the curvy cucumber and the knobbly carrot,”

European Union bureaucrats are to usher in a new age of acceptance when it comes to knobbly fruit and vegetables, scrapping the rules dictating that only "standard" size carrots can be sold in shops.

Misshapen and blemished fruit and vegetables are likely to find their way back on to supermarket shelves – although they may be labelled "for cooking" under reforms being proposed by the EU's Danish Agriculture and Rural Development commissioner, Mariann Fischer Boel.

" We want to have two classes, allowing supermarkets to sell funny shaped vegetables," said Michael Mann, a spokesman for the European Commission.

Ms Fischer Boel wants to abandon the eccentric rules that brought scorn on the EU and led to criticism that perfectly formed harvests had been achieved at the expense of taste.  The rules specify the diameter of carrots that can be sold as class one, unless they are officially regarded as baby carrots.  The Commission will now formally adopt the changes which, for practical reasons, will be implemented from 1 July 2009.


This rule will be scrapped:

"Carrots - Carrots less than 1.9cm in diameter at the thick end could not be sold as class one, unless marketed as "baby" varieties."

The cream-coloured carrot is making a comeback

As your browse the vegetable racks in your local store, you could easily mistake them for parsnips. But after four centuries of orange varieties, a cream carrot is to appear in British shops. The new-look version is said to be crisp and crunchy in texture and sweeter in taste than its orange cousin.

A bunch of Creme de Lite, cream-coloured carrots, which will be stocked by Marks & Spencer shops from next week. Marks & Spencer is to stock the carrots, which are organically produced in Scotland. Carrots were originally white, cream and purple, and only became orange coloured through cross-breeding 400 years ago, the store's vegetable expert said.

The orange variety was developed by Dutch growers aiming to produce a less bitter version and was adopted by the royal family in the Netherlands, where orange is the national colour.

However, the new Creme de Lite variety is said to have been specially produced to lack any of the bitterness of the original. It is grown by farmer Steven Jack in the Moray Firth. It can be cooked or eaten raw, just like the orange version of the vegetable.

Marks & Spencer agronomist Dr Simon Coupe said: 'This speciality organic cream carrot is already prized in Europe and America for its crisp and crunchy texture, and is especially good in salads or cooked the same way you would a classic orange carrot.' Previous attempts to revitalise the huge carrot market have been unsuccessful. Sales of purple carrots dropped shortly after they were introduced when customers discovered the colour seeped out of the vegetable and into the cooking water.

Researchers tap into carrots for colour and health - read more

Buy your seeds here:

Thompson & Morgan have a tremendous variety of carrot seeds for you to try, click on the link or banner to buy some.  Any seeds bought via this link makes a small a contribution to the upkeep of the World Carrot Museum.

 

Evengreener is the UK's leading manufacturer of water butts and home compost bins. A genuinely 'green' company dedicated to providing useful products to help re-use, recycle and conserve resources.

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