Talk:Carrot

Once upon a time: White carrots?

someone told me early carrots were white, and later men selected red varieties. Can anyone confirm it, explaining when did it happen? it seems reasonable, thinking to the wild carrot. tx achab 21:03, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

I have seen print references (newspaper articles) claiming that oramge was a result of (nationalistically inspired) selective breeding by the Dutch in the 17th Century, before which white and purple were the main colours. However I wouldn't be able to find it to check for citations and modern newspapers are rather fond of reproducing urban myth as fact. dramatic 18:25, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

It's true, and seedlings will over time revert to yellowish or white roots (at which point they are called Queen Anne's Lace. They also come in reds, purples, etc. SB Johnny 16:47, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

General Quality

I think this article could be improved a lot. Comparing it to the article for the potato, for instance, it seems pretty amateur. TastyCakes 17:10, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Vandalism

Seems like someone has been having fun, could someone change the feces jokes back to what was originally there? I'd do it myself but I'm not very good with the wiki system and I don't want to screw something up. -Anon

It appears that someone tried to fix the vandalism....looking at the html. But, the page that I view still has the inapproptiate stuff. I have no clue how to fix it. JF

Season

Could someone please add information about when the carrot is in season? I think that information is more appropriate than a discussion of Bugs Bunny.

In temperate climates, carrots are almost always in season. In climates with frost, carrots can be started before almost any crop and grown until frost becomes quite heavy. They can also be grown in winter in a glassed winter garden (a cheapo little greenhouse made from an old window and a wood box). They're a root crop, so they're pretty hardy. CaptainCarrot 06:55, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Trivia section

And I don't think there should be a "trivia" section talking about the World's largest carrot. That could go in the introduction paragraph. --Munchkinguy 19:41, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Beta-carotene

Originally, the page equated beta-carotene with vitamin A which is not true. Beta-carotene is a dimer of vitamin A. Modified this. 30 Mar 2005.

I had to look up what a dimer was, so it might have been better to link to it. On the other hand, is it true that it is a precursor to vitamin A? That might be more relevant from a nutritional point of view. I'm not sure enough to put it in myself. — Pekinensis 18:38, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Nicotene in carrots?

Does anyone know if there's any truth to the idea that carrots contain some amount of nicotene, and are good for easing cravings when trying to quit smoking? I personally know one smoker who quit with the help of carrots, and there certainly seem to be a lot of refs on the web to carrot-sticks as a psychological antidote to cravings, but nothing about containing nicotene (or being proven effective at fighting cravings, for whatever reason). --Woozle 14:45, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Most smokers I know claim that part of the addictive behaviour of cigarettes involves the oral fixation, meaning that they always want to have something long and slender in their mouths (dirty-minded readers, please move on without comment ;-)). My mother (an ex-smoker) often resorted to plastic coffee stir sticks and chewed on those whenever she had a strong craving. My guess would be that carrots also serve as a similar placebo, and that they don't have any nicotine at all. There's nothing about it on Snopes at all, which leads me to believe that it's a pretty isolated rumour, too. I'm not a psychologist or an expert, however, so take what I say with a pinch of salt. --Jtgibson 22:08, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Skirrets

The skirret article sounds like it's describing a completely different vegetable than the carrot. In fact, it has a different Latinate name, Sium sisarum. But the section on the origin of the carrot makes it sound like "skirret" is just an archaic word for "carrot". --209.108.217.226 01:09, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Found this link that has many of the same information as this page: http://www.answers.com/topic/carrot-4

carrots good for eyes?

So according to this article it's bogus. Lots of other sources on the internet, however, say it's true that carrots are good for your eyes. Often the reason given is beta carotene being a dimer of Vitamin A. Which is true, but...uh, my knowledge of chemistry is lacking. So is it true? --Janto 19:09, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Read the reference at the bottom of the page. LACK of Vitamin A can cause POOR vision, and restoring Vitamin A to the diet can restore vision. But large amounts of Vitamin A do not lead to super-vision, nor will eating carrots avoid the need for eyeglasses. The idea that eating lots of carrots will improve night vision is a myth founded in WWII propaganda. Jedwards01 06:48, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Aaaah! OK now it makes sense. Thanks! I added some of your info to the article. --Janto 14:39, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Eastern and Western Carrots Classes

It's currently formatted as a Definition (with ;) I'd personally prefer it if they were formatted as sub headings of Cultivars heading. -- Demerzel 12:24, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Merge Baby Carrot?

As recommended by User:No1lakersfan...

• Oppose: the article on Baby Carrot is contrary to fact (baby carrots have been grown for hundreds of years at least), and should be simply deleted. Mention of baby carrots on this article would be a nice idea, if it includes factual information. SB Johnny 16:45, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Change that to no strong opinion, as the Baby Carrot article is now being improved. SB Johnny 17:37, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose. Carrot juice and carrot cake have their own articles; the baby carrot is enough of a phenomenon that it should too. Denni ☯ 18:12, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose. I agree with what Denni. They should certainly be a link from this article, but I think it should stand on it's own. --Falcorian ^(talk) 00:09, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose. Denni is right in saying that the baby carrot is enough of w phenomenon of its own. In fact, it is mostlly considered a seperate species. --Nin 15:17, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Uh-huh...

"But when feeding a carrot to a horse, make sure you don't grip the carrot, but lay the carrot flat in the palm of your hand. Otherwise, the horse could bite you."

Is that something we should really be including in this article? I think not.

I would put it as a footnote in an article about horses.--Filll 03:19, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

And I did it.--Filll 03

30, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Protection

Full protection of this article seems way over the top. It has not been hit much more heavily than normal recently, nor in such a manner that would require full protection over semi-protection (which I would also disagree with needing). In short, I can't see why it was applied. --Falcorian ^(talk) 16:36, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

I have to second that. Further, all of the vandalism has been anonymous, so semi-protection would have stopped all of it. I also don't understand why semi-protection was only applied for a few days at a time, and then rescinded. Waitak 01:48, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if you're all aware that a lot of things have been happening with this article that don't show up in the History, because the vandalism has been so nasty that the relevant revisions haven't been merely reverted, but actually removed by administrators. Today I ran into a technical snag when trying to remove one of them, and AmiDaniel had to do a full protect to have the article to himself for a while, to clean up my mess. He may not even have meant to leave it fully protected, I'm not sure. Anyway, I agree that semi is all it needs, as all the serious vandalism has come from one anonymous user on different AOL IPs. I've turned it down to semi, with an explicit edit summary, and I hope other admins will be in no hurry to unprotect. Bishonen | talk 02:15, 17 July 2006 (UTC).

Thank you! This round of vandalism has been particularly loathsome, and I appreciate you and other admins cleaning up the mess. Blech. Hope that it stays semi-protected as long as needed. Waitak 02:31, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

That explains that then, thank you and keep up the good work! --Falcorian ^(talk) 16:51, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Further Information

I have read that the "original" carrots were purple with orange middles, and that the solid orange color was the result of a breeding program to honor the House of Orange. I have also read that there are many groceries in the UK that sell these purple carrots with orange interiors. Anyone know anything about these? --Filll 19:38, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

What does this mean?

"garden carrots that run to seed" --Filll 17:49, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Lifecycle

This article is helpful for cooking but not on the actual growth - please may someone add some infomation.

You are free to help with the research and add material.--Filll 20:05, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

--Ricardo Carneiro Pires 22:10, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

External Links

I added three links (one of which--full disclosure--is to a site I maintain on home vegetable gardening). I feel that the list would benefit from pruning, but was reluctant to do any while adding links.

Eric Walker 01:52, 4 April 2007 (UTC)