Carrots - the history

Carrots are the nation's favourite vegetable - 75% of Britons say they eat carrots regularly (Mintel May 2001) and we crunch our way through more than 10 billion carrots each year.

Ancient roots

The British carrot is available all year round and is a vegetable we all know and love - but it wasn't always so readily available. In years gone by, the carrot was considered positively exotic! It is thought that the carrot first came from Afghanistan sometime around the 7th Century AD, when they were originally purple! Carrots were known to both the Greeks and Romans. In fact, the Greeks called the carrot "Philtron" and used it as a love medicine - making men more ardent and women more yielding. The Roman emperor Caligula, believing these stories, forced the whole Roman Senate to eat carrots so he could see them "in rut like wild beasts"! India, China, and Japan had established carrots as a food crop by the 13th century. In Europe, however, they were not well known until well into the Middle Ages. At that time, doctors prescribed them for everything from sexual maladies to snakebite.

Integral to many recipes

The orange carrot is thought to have originated in 16th century Holland where the original red, purple, black, yellow, and white varietals were hybridised to today's bright orange, with its potent dose of beta carotene. Carrots moved to England, during Elizabethan times. Some Elizabethans ate the roots as food; others used their feathery stalks to decorate their hair, their hats, their dresses, and their coats. Carrots are extremely versatile, delicious either raw or cooked, and are an integral part in many recipes from around the globe: America is famous for mouth-watering carrot cake; in India carrots are used to produce a delicious fudge-like dessert called Halva. Carrots are also an important ingredient in many Jewish recipes such as Tzimmes - a sweet stew which is usually is orange in colour; and of course, carrots were on the menus of many of the hotels in Vichy in France as part of the 'cure' (for overloaded digestive systems), from where the traditional recipe of Carrots Vichy came.

Seeing in the dark?

Many of us will remember as children being told to 'eat up your carrots - they'll help you see in the dark'. Although carrots are an excellent source of vitamin A, which can help improve your night vision, this is really an old wive's tale which is believed to have originated during the Second World War. To conceal the fact that they possessed radar systems, the British spread the rumour that the accuracy of their fighter pilots was down to the large quantities of carrots they consumed. Whilst it might be true that carrots did help the pilots, it is more likely that radar was in fact responsible for their accuracy!

This ruse also helped the government persuade the public to eat more carrots, as part of the Dig for Victory campaign when people were persuaded to grow their own vegetables. One campaign poster bore the slogan: "Carrots keep you healthy and help you to see in the blackout".

Rich in vitamins

As well as vitamin A, carrots contain vitamins K, C and some of the B vitamins, as well as plenty of dietary fibre. So try something new with carrots today - not only are they healthy but they're delicious too!