Baby carrots are not baby carrots
Posted
Dec 24 2007, 10:24 AM
by
Karen Datko
We were, for the longest time, among those who thought baby carrots actually came out of the ground that way. Thanks to The Happy Rock and Wise Bread, we now know better. Baby carrots are pieces of big carrots that are cut to look like little carrots, then washed and packaged for convenient munching. Like Rock, we're going back to buying "adult" carrots. Why? As Rock explains, regular carrots cost a lot less, taste better, have a longer shelf life and generally have more beta carotene. And folks, it really doesn't take long to cut up a carrot, even if you peel it first.
Rock's inspiration came from a post by Andrea Dickson at Wise Bread that explains the evolution of the baby carrot. They were created by a farmer who was tired of wasting carrots considered unfit for retail sale because they weren't perfectly straight. What started as an means to reduce waste has ended up as a way to charge consumers more money, she explains. "In the same way that those plastic containers of sliced honeydew melon are an incredible rip-off -- costing sometimes four times more per unit cost, even accounting for rind weight -- baby carrots are a good idea that doesn't serve us well," Dickson writes.
