Someone here once mentioned that the baby carrots I like to dip in Ranch dressing and happily munch on are nothing more than big carrots sharpened down to little carrot nubbins, and that they were not baby carrots at all. :mad:
I have not been able to eat my baby carrots in peace ever since that disturbing comment, as I keep staring at each carrot with every bite wondering if it really is a baby carrot imposter.
The bag that I buy my baby carrots in is clearly marked as:
Classic Cut and Peeled Baby Carrots
Now unless this company is blatantly LYING through their teeth, I choose to believe that my carrot “nubbins” are really in fact BABY CARROTS.
I’ve heard that rumor before, and I don’t believe it for a second. Look at the inside of the carrot after you take a bite. There’s a core in the middle, and if it were a big carrot whittled down, the core would be disproportionately large, which, I am quite certain you will find in your baby carrot, it is not. There.
That’s still not the same as full-size carrot being lathed down to a smaller diameter, which is what some people allege. OK, so they’re skinny carrots cut into shorter lengths. That I can live with.
When I take a bite outta the baby carrot, I see little rings inside, kinda like the rings from a tree trunk, but these are carrot rings…and they are little!
If it was a carrot nubbin, I would see maybe one ring!
Lola, read Ferros’ link again. The carrots are long and slender to start with. Then they are chopped to a two-inch length and the ends are lathed down to round off the ends. They’re not using a saw mill to turn an old-growth carrot into dimensional carrots.
Ok, I am on the other side of the pacific but each year I grow baby carrots. It is a variety that is suitable for growing in shallow beds and pots. If left to their own devices they get large and woody compared to those seen in the supermrket but nowhere near the size of a traditional carrrot. Perhaps baby is seen as being more PC than dwarf which is closer to the truth?
Lola, dear, maybe you need to speak to someone about your aversion to full sized carrots. Ask yourself, has my phobia of adult carrots gotten to the point where it interferes with my relationships with other vegetables? Does my insistence on “infantalizing” my snacks stem from some delay in my development resulting from childhood trauma? Don’t be afraid to grow, Lola! We all become big carrots some day! :HUGS!:
As the person who traumatized you with the “Nubbins” comment, I gotta say “Sorry, but face facts.” Yes, there is a breed of carrots called “Baby” carrots, but that’s like saying a wrestler named Baby-Face is, in fact, an infant.
Remember the famous Cecil “Grape-Nuts” column where the reader asks if he could market dessicated corn-husks as “Steak”?
Same deal.
Yes you have “Baby” brand carrots that have been put in a carrot-y pencil sharpener, but they’re hardly immature carrots. At best they’re late-teen carrots. Ever seen a baby carrot? They’re semi-transluscent. Slightly watery. Not very crisp. Fragile as hell.
As Ferrous said:
Bred to be long and skinny. Skinny=narrower rings. They’re still not immature carrots.
More Cites, cites and , from a site that will not parse correctly
Now I have this image from some cartoon where a big robotic arm picks up a whole tree, sticks it into a giant pencil sharpener, and pulls out a toothpick, which it then places in a box of toothpicks.
I go to the grocers where the baby carrots come in bunches, with stems at the top and hairy roots threads at the bottom. Obviously they are not shaved down. YMMV.
Exactly. Those are real baby carrots (and yummy they are!) The stuff in the bags are skinny, mutant, teenaged carrots that are pencil-sharpened down to nubbins.
But I’m glad Lola and I are cool again! I was up at night for fear of having caused her even a soupcon of discomfort!
