A friend of mine told me that produce companies bleach baby carrots, and that accounts for their white appearance after they have been sitting out or are old. Say it ain’t so! I love baby carrots and don’t think I could eat them anymore if they really are bleached. Anyone know the truth on this?
Good news/Bad news
The outside is abraded off and they sit in a bag forever. Peel a carrot, put it in a bag, put it in a refrigerator and you too can make it happen over a period of time. The chlorine isn’t needed to make it happen.
If they were literally bleached, they would already be whitened by the time they get to the store. (Spill bleach on your clothes and see how long it takes.) They wouldn’t turn white only after you opened them. And that white stuff wouldn’t go away when you wet them.
I’d hoped that Snopes article would explain why they get slimy, and why that moisture isn’t enough to keep them from turning white.
I’m kind of sad that baby carrots aren’t really made from deformed big carrots. It pleased me to imagine that even the funny-looking ones had a Purpose.
Originally baby carrots were young whole carrots in the store. It took the large corporations less than a year to flood the market with ground down carrots sold as baby carrots. The real baby carrots are impossible to find anymore.
Stupid baby carrots!! I miss the day when you used to be able to buy carrot sticks! Baby carrots killed that market.
Yeah, I know, I could make my own carrot sticks but that would require an effort on my part… So that’s out…
I really like carrot sticks. I won’t eat those nasty ground down baby carrots that are mostly carrot core. The tasty sweet tender part of the carrot is the outer part. The inner core is the tough and sometimes bitter core.
I buy them at the farmers market every week. Actual infant carrots. Mmmm. Like candy. If truth in labeling laws applied to carrot marketing, those commercial “baby” carrots would have to be sold as “mature machined carrots pieces.”
The white coating just means they were not just old when pulled from the ground, they’ve been sitting around in their bag for too long too.
Little baby carrots were the best thing about having a garden as a kid. You served a useful purpose by thinning out the rows of carrots and you got the little carrots to rinse off under the tap and eat right there. Plus you found the deformed twisted carrots that had grown together and formed rude little men. Always good for a giggle when you are a kid.