Carrots and Their Health Benefits

Yes, it is true that carrots can turn the skin orange if you eat too many, but eating them in moderation can actually help prevent illnesses in the body from occurring. Carrots are even more nutritious to the body when they are deep orange in color and steamed because this is when they have the most antioxidants in them. So, stop just using carrots for the snowmen noses because you are afraid they will turn your skin orange and start getting them into your diet.

Appearance, Texture and Flavor of Carrots

Carrots are orange in color with a green leafy soft top and root like bottoms that are thick and crunchy in texture with a sweet crisp taste to them. However, depending on the types of carrots, carrots can be other colors too such as purple, white and yellow. Carrots can be washed and eaten as they are, or chopped up and had as vegetable side dish with a meal. However, when you cook carrots they do become tender with a sweeter flavor, which makes them excellent for tossing into soups and stews.

Home of the Carrots

Carrots originally come from Afghanistan, but now they grow all over the world in countries like China, Greece, Rome, the United States, India, Canada and Britain. Carrots are root vegetables that love growing in cold moist fertilized soil that is loose and deep so they can grow long and thick. However, carrots must be watered plenty each day since they do not grow well in dry hot conditions, which could potentially kill them. When carrots are ready to be harvested, they are typically 6 to 18 inches long and can be pulled up from the soil gently by their leafy green tops. Once the carrots are harvested, they should be rinsed well with water, dried with a towel and stored in a cool dry place such as the refrigerator until they are ready to be eaten. Some people even like to chop carrots up and can or freeze them until they are ready to be used in meals.

Nutrients in Carrots

• Vitamins C, A, K, E and B complex
  
• Manganese
  
• Potassium
  
• Phosphorus
  
• Magnesium
  
• Phytonutrients
  
• Antioxidants
  
• Fiber
  

Health Benefits of Carrots

Carrots are definitely some of those vegetables you will want to eat often to keep your eyes from night blindness and cataracts. Adding carrots to your daily diet can even help prevent heart diseases, heart attacks, stokes, high blood pressure, unbalanced sugar levels and inflammatory diseases. Carrots also contain plenty of fiber in them that can help keep the digestive tract healthy by preventing waste from building up in our intestines and causing use constipation and other digestive diseases. Having carrots as a healthy snack or with a meal can even help protect you from developing cancers like lung, eye, breast, stomach, skin and prostate cancers. In addition, chewing on raw carrots can even help clean the teeth and keep them strong. If you are trying to loose weight, munching on carrots for a healthy snack instead of sugary snacks can help you do so since the fiber in them keeps the tummy full in between meals. I personally eat carrots to help keep harmful toxins from building up in my bloodstream and making me sick. I also make a fresh carrot juice using my juicer so I can have a detoxifying juice to drink to clean my liver and keep it healthy. I even find that carrots help keep my irregular heartbeat regular when I do eat them once a day as a healthy snack. Other people like to drink the juice of carrots to relieve coughing and respiratory infections. Some people even find crushing carrots up into pumice and spreading onto a wound can help speed up the healing process since carrots do have the ability to cleanse and repair skin naturally. Heck, you can even eat carrots just to keep the immune and nervous systems healthy and functioning properly.

Precautions When Eating Carrots

Eating too many carrots as I mentioned in the beginning can turn your skin orange, but otherwise carrots are safe to eat and very good for you.