Vitamins and Minerals Found Inside Carrots

Carrots are loaded with plenty of nutrients our bodies seek daily. Carrots can be both nutritious and delicious when juiced alone and when juiced with other ingredients (including fruit!) making carrots my absolute favorite fresh vegetable ingredient to keep on hand. Along with apple juice, carrot juice is the most versatile of juices, combining well with and sweetening a host of other juices.

Here are a few of the questions we attempt to answer about carrots.

• What vitamins and minerals are in carrots make carrots so good for us?
• What is the best method for juicing carrots?
• What are some great buying tips for carrots?

Plus, we'll do our best to provide some general information about carrots that you might not find so easily elsewhere on the Internet.

Let's begin our exploration of carrots...

Vitamins and Minerals in Carrots

Carrots are probably best known for being loaded with beta carotene (Provitamin A) -- an eight ounce glass of fresh made carrot juice can contain up to 20,000 milligrams of this nutrient -- but carrots also can be a great source of vitamin C and the B complex vitamins.

Vitamins in Carrots

• Beta Carotene (Provitamin A)
• Vitamin C
• B Complex Vitamins
• Vitamin E
• Vitamin K
• Fiber

Minerals in Carrots

• Calcium
• Magnesium
• Potassium
• Sodium
• Phosphorus

Trace amounts of other minerals including Copper, Iron, Manganese, Selenium and Zinc and trace amounts of protein.

The next time you think about Carrots... think about how they might add a powerful nutritional boost and deliciously sweet addition to your daily nutrition through juicing.

Juicing Tips for Juicing Carrots

Juicing Carrots can add both flavor and valuable nutrients to most any home-juiced cocktail... and it can act as a sweetener for some vegetable juice concoctions.

Here are a few tips for juicing Carrots that may help turn your juicing experience into something you look forward to and thoroughly enjoy.

Once you begin juicing, you will quickly find that carrots become one of the most used ingredients in your juicing regime.

Properly cleaned, organic carrots do not have to be peeled prior to juicing. In fact, you will want to keep the skin on as many valuable nutrients are contained in the skin.

Fresh carrot juice is sweet and can act as a sweetener combined with other vegetables less palatable when juiced. (Check our Juice section for great recipes and hints.) 

Purchasing Tips for Buying Carrots

If you are unable to grow your own carrots, then here are a few tips for buying Carrots that may help you get the freshest ingredients. We'll also include a few storing tips for carrots that you might find helpful.

We recommend you buy organic carrots when possible. Buy firm, smooth carrots without cracks and bruises or small white roots.

A thick mass of new sprouts or leaves at the stem end may indicate woody cores, as will diameters of more than one and a half inches. The brighter the color, the sweeter the carrot.

Keep carrots in the refrigerator for up to two weeks.

Non organically grown carrots should be cleaned well and trimmed at the top and the stem end by about a half inch. Pesticides concentrate in the stem end.

Even if the carrots are dirty, do not peel them. A great portion of the food value lies just below the peel and scraping off the skin removes it. Instead, scrub the carrots under running water with a gentle scouring brush. Organically grown carrots need only be rinsed before juicing -- you don't need to trim them at all.

General Information About Carrots

This article wouldn't be complete if we didn't include a little general information about carrots, as well as a few helpful links if you want to explore carrots further.

Native to Afghanistan, carrots were known to both the Greeks and Romans. In fact, the Greeks called the carrot "Philtron" and used it as a love medicine--making men more ardent and women more yielding. The Roman emperor Caligula, believing these stories, forced the whole Roman Senate to eat carrots.

Carrots arrived in the New World with the early colonists, but they were allowed to escape cultivation and subsequently turned into the omnipresent and delicate wild flower Queen Anne's Lace.

Carrots are a member of the Umbelliferae family, which also includes celery, parsley, dill, cilantro, caraway, cumin, and the poisonous hemlock.

Hippocrates recommended women eat carrot seeds to prevent pregnancy.

The scene from the movie It Happened One Night in which Clark Gable leans nonchalantly against a fence eating carrots while talking to Claudette Colbert inspired the creators of Bugs Bunny to give him the same nonchalant, carrot-eating demeanor.

Fossil pollen from the Eocene period (55 to 34 million years ago) has been identified as belonging to the Apiaceae (the carrot family).

It is said (with no documentary evidence) that the cultivated and edible carrot dates back about 5,000 years ago when the purple root was found to be growing in the area now known as Afghanistan.

Temple drawings from Egypt in 2000 BC show a purple plant, which some Egyptologists believe could have been a purple carrot. However Egyptian papyruses containing information about treatments with seeds were found in pharaoh crypts but there is no direct reference to carrot.

Tobacconists in France used to put a carrot in their bins to keep their tobacco from drying out.

Carrots ranked as the seventh most valuable crop produced in the United States in 2004.

Additional Sources/Resources for Carrots

• Eat This! - 25 Facts About Carrots
• World Carrot Museum - Discover the Power of Carrots
• Carrots for Valuable Vitamin A

Be sure to check out both our "Juicing" and our "Smoothies" sections for delicious recipes and more using Carrots!