Know Your Ingredients: Carrots

By Diane Watkins

Carrots are sometimes referred to as super foods, and my experience bears that out. When my first son was only a few months old, he wouldn’t take water, but wanted to drink constantly. My doctor didn’t want him to have fruit juices yet, because of the sugar, so I gave him carrot juice. He loved it and he drank a lot of it.

Over the years I had 4 sons. I thought back and realized that my oldest never had any of the ear infections, common colds, or other ailments that the younger ones had- not one single ear infection! The only thing I could point to was carrot juice. I know it may be coincidence, but I am convinced that the carrot juice made him more healthy and resistant to the everyday germs that we all encounter.

Now before you begin to think I’ve become a commercial for carrots, lets talk about selecting and cooking this healthy food.

Selecting and Storing Carrots
The best carrots are fresh and dark orange in color. I usually avoid the “baby carrots”, they aren’t really babies, but carrot pieces cut from mature carrots. I figure they probably use the old, wilting carrots to cut the babies, so they may not be as fresh. Plus, most of the vitamins lie just beneath the skin–cut away to shape the babies.

Raw vs. Cooked Carrots – Nutrition

While I thoroughly believe in the nutrition of raw vegetables, carrots are so fiberous that most of the vitamins are not digested unless the carrot is cooked. Enjoy a few raw for the fiber and gently cook the rest. Even a gentle steaming is enough to soften the vegetable so that our systems can digest it well and extract the valuable nutrition. Save the cooking water to use in soups or other dishes.

How to Use Carrots
The list of uses for carrots is endless. Cook them and serve them plain or with a simple sauce. Use them in stews and soups, salads, and vegetable mixtures. Shred them and add them to muffins, cakes (Carrot Cake — my favorite!) and purees. Slice them thin for stir-fry. Juice them, either raw or cooked.

Try some of these recipes to get more carrots into your diet:

Easy Ways to Cook Carrots