Carrot Common

By default, I have become a pretty savvy grocery shopper. When you live alone and must adhere to a reasonable budget, you begin to do all those horribly lame things that you swore you would never do like compare the prices of grapes at different stores. I have actually had full conversations about the merits of Loblaws versus Sobeys versus Longos. I find myself saying and knowing things like that Longos usually has the freshest produce and then I find myself cursing my own stupid knowledge of things like produce.

So of course, last night while at the Metro (which, I just fucking hate- dear overpriced selection and terrible organic fruit section), while I was running around buying my week's groceries- I was also checking prices.
Over at the baby carrot section (obsessed with carrots is an understatement) there were 4 bags from different brands. 3 small bags, 1 large one- all smalls were 1.99, the large was 2.50- a no brainer!
Pleased with my attention to detail and shopping smarts, I checked out, got home and began munching on the carrots.

Well folks, my attention to detail is just not quite what I wish it were as it seemed that instead of the baby carrots I had been seeking, I had purchased something called baby carrot shaped peeled carrots- which leads me to the point of this blog.
Who in the world created a product called baby carrot shaped peeled carrots?
why not just cut up a carrot? or buy the baby carrot? What idiot (aside from me) would be inclined to purchase a carrot, that has been shaved and peeled to look like a baby carrot- even though it isn't?

They don't even taste like baby carrots- you know how the baby ones are all sweet and juicy? These are dry and bland, like a real carrot- so then why?

I am mystified at this product.

So I googled, as any good researcher would, here is what I found from the carrotmuseum.co.uk- because, of course there is a carrot museum, right??


"Manufactured" baby carrots , or cut and peel, are what you see most often in the shops  - are carrot shaped slices of peeled carrots invented in the late 1980's by Mike Yurosek, a California farmer, as a way of making use of carrots which are too twisted or knobbly for sale as full-size carrots. Yurosek was unhappy at having to discard as much as 400 tonnes of  carrots a day because of their imperfections, and looked for a way to reclaim what would otherwise be a waste product. He was able to find an industrial green bean cutter, which cut his carrots into 5 cm lengths, and by placing these lengths into an industrial potato peeler, he created the baby carrot.
The much decreased waste is also used either for juicing or as animal fodder. Perhaps most important, the baby-cut method allows growers to use far more of the carrot than they used to. In the past, a third or more of a carrot crop could have been easily tossed away, but baby-cut allows more partial carrots to be used, and the peeling process actually removes less of the outer skin that you might imagine They are sold in single-serving packs with ranch dressing for dipping on the side. They're passed out on airplanes and sold in plastic containers designed to fit in a car's cup holder. At Disney World, and MacDonald's burgers now come two ways:  with fries or baby carrots.

So, for anyone out there who was wondering- you are eating the mutant carrots.


Bon appetite!