Carrot
Harvested carrots
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
(unranked):	Angiosperms
(unranked):	Eudicots
(unranked):	Asterids
Order:	Apiales
Family:	Apiaceae
Genus:	Daucus
Species:	D. carota
Binomial name
Daucus carota L.

The carrot (Daucus carota subsp. sativus, Etymology: from Late Latin carōta, from Greek καρότον karōton, originally from the Indo-European root ker- (horn), due to its horn-like shape) is a root vegetable, usually orange in colour, though purple, red, white, and yellow varieties exist. It has a crisp texture when fresh. The most commonly eaten part of a carrot is a taproot, although the greens are edible as well. It is a domesticated form of the wild carrot Daucus carota, native to Europe and southwestern Asia. The domestic carrot has been selectively bred for its greatly enlarged and more palatable, less woody-textured edible taproot.

Description[link]

Wild carrot in its natural habitat

It is a biennial plant which grows a rosette of leaves in the spring and summer, while building up the stout taproot, which stores large amounts of sugars for the plant to flower in the second year. The flowering stem grows to about 1 metre (3 ft) tall, with an umbel of white flowers that produce a fruit called a mericarp by botanists, which is a type of schizocarp.^[1]

Methods of consumption and uses[link]

Carrots can be eaten in a variety of ways. Only 3% of the β-carotene in raw carrots is released during digestion: this can be improved to 39% by pulping, cooking and adding cooking oil.^[2] Alternatively they may be chopped and boiled, fried or steamed, and cooked in soups and stews, as well as baby and pet foods. A well known dish is carrots julienne. The greens are edible as a leaf vegetable, but are rarely eaten by humans. Together with onion and celery, carrots are one of the primary vegetables used in a mirepoix to make various broths.

In India carrots are used in a variety of ways, as salads or as vegetables added to spicy rice or daal dishes. The most popular variation in north India is the Gaajar Kaa Halwaa carrot dessert, which has carrots grated and cooked in milk until the whole mixture is solid, after which nuts and butter are added. Carrot salads are usually made with grated carrots in western parts with a seasoning of mustard seeds and green chillies popped in hot oil, while adding carrots to rice usually is in julienne shape.

The variety of carrot found in north India is rare everywhere except in Central Asia and other contiguous regions, and is now growing in popularity in larger cosmopolitan cities in South India. The north Indian carrot is pink-red comparable to plum or raspberry or deep red apple in colour (without a touch of yellow or blue) while most other carrot varieties in world are from orange to yellow in colour, comparable to hallowe'en pumpkins.

Ever since the late 1980s, baby carrots or mini-carrots (carrots that have been peeled and cut into uniform cylinders) have been a popular ready-to-eat snack food available in many supermarkets.

The sweetness of carrots allows the vegetable to be used in some fruit-like roles. Grated carrots are used in carrot cakes, as well as carrot puddings, an old English dish thought to have originated in the early 19th century. Carrots can also be used alone or with fruits in jam and preserves. Carrot juice is also widely marketed, especially as a health drink, either stand-alone or blended with fruits and other vegetables.

Companion plant[link]

Carrots are useful companion plants for gardeners. There is experimental evidence^{[citation needed]} that growing it intercropped with tomatoes increases tomato production. If left to flower, it (like any umbellifer) attracts predatory wasps which kill many garden pests.

Nutrition[link]

Carrot tzimmes

β-Carotene structure. Carotene is responsible for the orange colour of carrots and many other fruits and vegetables.

The carrot gets its characteristic and bright orange colour from β-carotene, which is metabolised into vitamin A in humans when bile salts are present in the intestines.^[3] Massive overconsumption of carrots can cause carotenosis, a benign condition in which the skin turns orange. Carrots are also rich in dietary fibre, antioxidants, and minerals.

Lack of vitamin A can cause poor vision, including night vision, and vision can be restored by adding it back into the diet. An urban legend says eating large amounts of carrots will allow one to see in the dark. The legend developed from stories of British gunners in World War II, who were able to shoot down German planes in the darkness of night. The legend arose during the Battle of Britain when the RAF circulated a story about their pilots' carrot consumption as an attempt to cover up the discovery and effective use of radar technologies in engaging enemy planes, as well as the use of red light (which does not destroy night vision) in aircraft instruments.^[4][5] It reinforced existing German folklore and helped to encourage Britons—looking to improve their night vision during the blackouts—to grow and eat the vegetable.

Ethnomedically, the roots are used to treat digestive problems, intestinal parasites, and tonsillitis or constipation.

Chemistry[link]

Polyacetylenes can be found in Apiaceae vegetables like carrots where they show cytotoxic activities.^[6][7] Falcarinol and falcarindiol (cis-heptadeca-1,9-diene-4,6-diyne-3,8-diol)^[8] are such compounds. This latter compound shows antifungal activity towards Mycocentrospora acerina and Cladosporium cladosporioides.^[8]

Other compounds such as 6-hydroxymellein^[9], 6-methoxymellein, eugenin, 2,4,5-trimethoxybenzaldehyde (gazarin) or (Z)-3-acetoxy-heptadeca-1,9-diene-4,6-diin-8-ol (falcarindiol 3-acetate) can also be found in carrot. Falcarindiol is the main compound responsible for bitterness in carrots.^[10]

History[link]

Workers harvesting carrots, Imperial Valley, California, 1948

A basket of carrots displayed in a Singapore supermarket.

The wild ancestors of the carrot are likely to have come from Iran and Afghanistan, which remains the centre of diversity of D. carota, the wild carrot. Selective breeding over the centuries of a naturally occurring subspecies of the wild carrot, Daucus carota subsp. sativus, to reduce bitterness, increase sweetness and minimise the woody core, has produced the familiar garden vegetable.^[11][12]

In early use, carrots were grown for their aromatic leaves and seeds, not their roots. Some relatives of the carrot are still grown for these, such as parsley, fennel, dill and cumin. The first mention of the root in classical sources is in the 1st century. The modern carrot appears to have been introduced to Europe in the 8–10th centuries.^{[citation needed]} The 12th c. Arab Andalusian agriculturist, Ibn al-'Awwam, describes both red and yellow carrots; Simeon Seth also mentions both colours in the 11th century. Orange-coloured carrots appeared in the Netherlands in the 17th century.^[13] These, the modern carrots, were intended by the antiquary John Aubrey (1626–1697) when he noted in his memoranda "Carrots were first sown at Beckington in Somersetshire Some very old Man there [in 1668] did remember their first bringing hither."^[14]

In addition to wild carrot, these alternative (mostly historical) names are recorded for Daucus carota: bee's-nest, bee's-nest plant, bird's-nest, bird's-nest plant, bird's-nest root, carota, carotte (French), carrot, common carrot, crow's-nest, daucon, dawke, devil's-plague, fiddle, gallicam, garden carrot, gelbe Rübe (German), gingidium, hill-trot, laceflower, mirrot, Möhre (German), parsnip (misapplied), Queen Anne's lace, rantipole, staphylinos, and zanahoria (Spanish).^[15]

Cultivation[link]

Left frame

Right frame

Parallel view

Cross-eye view

Carrot seeds

Carrots grow best in full sun but tolerate some shade^[16] In order to avoid growing deformed carrots it is better to plant them in loose soil free from rocks. The seeds, which are 1-3mm in diameter, should be sown about 2cm deep. Carrots take around 4 months to mature and it is suggested that carrot seeds are sown from mid - February to July.

Cultivars[link]

Carrots come in a wide variety of shapes, colors and sizes

Carrots with multiple taproots (forks) are not specific cultivars but are a byproduct of damage to earlier forks often associated with rocky soil.

Carrots can be selectively bred to produce different colours.

Carrot cultivars can be grouped into two broad classes, eastern carrots and western carrots. More recently, a number of novelty cultivars have been bred for particular characteristics.

The city of Holtville, California, promotes itself as "Carrot Capital of the World", and holds an annual festival devoted entirely to the carrot.

Eastern carrots[link]

Eastern carrots were domesticated in Central Asia, probably in modern-day Iran and Afghanistan in the 10th century, or possibly earlier. Specimens of the eastern carrot that survive to the present day are commonly purple or yellow, and often have branched roots. The purple colour common in these carrots comes from anthocyanin pigments.

Western carrots[link]

The western carrot emerged in the Netherlands in the 17th century,^[17] from Iran with violet colour, its orange colour making it popular in those countries as an emblem of the House of Orange and the struggle for Dutch independence. The orange colour results from abundant carotenes in these cultivars.

Western carrot cultivars are commonly classified by their root shape:

• Chantenay carrots are shorter than other cultivars, but have greater girth, sometimes growing up to 8 centimetres (3 in) in diameter. They have broad shoulders and taper towards a blunt, rounded tip. They are most commonly diced for use in canned or prepared foods.
• Danvers carrots have a conical shape, having well-defined shoulders and tapering to a point at the tip. They are somewhat shorter than Imperator cultivars, but more tolerant of heavy soil. Danvers cultivars are often puréed as baby food. They were developed in 1871 in Danvers, Ma.^[18]

One particular variety lacks the usual orange pigment from carotenes, owing its white colour to a recessive gene for tocopherol (vitamin E).^[19] Derived from Daucus carota L. and patented at the University of Wisconsin–Madison,^[19] the variety is intended to supplement the dietary intake of Vitamin E.^[20]

Production trends[link]

Carrot and Turnip output in 2005. Green: largest producer (China). Yellow: other major producers. Red: minor producers

In 2009, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization, 33.582 million tonnes of carrots and turnips were produced worldwide. With 15.168 million tonnes, China was by far the largest producer and accounted for 45.2 % of the global output, followed by Russia (1.518 million tonnes) and the United States (1.304 million tonnes).^[21]

Carrot weighing and packing machine in The Netherlands

Storage[link]

Carrots can be stored for several months in the refrigerator or over winter in moist sand in a cool place.^[22][23]

See also[link]

Carrot sprouts 11 days after being sown in a sand-based seed germinator. A 10 cent euro coin was placed on the soil to serve as a scale.

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Daucus carota

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Carrot-based food

Wikiversity has bloom time data for Daucus carota on the Bloom Clock

Look up carrot in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikibooks Cookbook has a recipe/module on Carrot

• Recipes with carrots at the Open Directory Project
• World Carrot Museum
• "BetaSweet purple carrot". Texas A&M. http://vic.tamu.edu/main/VFICIndex/Web%20pages/f&vresearchpgs/betasweetnews/newmightmaroon.htm. 
• Carrot and Garlic Genetics - diverse information on carrots, with links to more (USDA)
• "Carrots - Nutritional Information". About.com. http://nutrition.about.com/od/fruitsandvegetables/p/Carrots.htm. 
• Daucus carota sativus - Plants For a Future database entry

Michael Pollan
Pollan speaking at Yale University
Born	(1955-02-06) 6 February 1955 (age 57) Long Island, New York, United States
Occupation	Author, Journalist, Professor
Spouse	Judith Belzer (m. 1987) «start: (1987)»"Marriage: Judith Belzer to Michael Pollan" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Michael_Pollan)
Website
michaelpollan.com

Michael Pollan (born February 6, 1955)^{[citation needed]} is an American author, journalist, activist, and professor of journalism at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.^[1] A 2006 New York Times book review describes him as a "liberal foodie intellectual."^[2]

Early years[link]

Pollan was born on Long Island, New York to author and financial consultant Stephen Pollan and columnist Corky Pollan.^[3] Pollan received a B.A. in English from Bennington College in 1977 and an M.A. in English from Columbia University in 1981.^[4]

Career[link]

Books[link]

In The Omnivore's Dilemma, Pollan describes four basic ways that human societies have obtained food: the current industrial system, the big organic operation, the local self-sufficient farm, and the hunter-gatherer. Pollan follows each of these processes—from a group of plants photosynthesizing calories through a series of intermediate stages, ultimately into a meal. Along the way, he suggests that there is a fundamental tension between the logic of nature and the logic of human industry, that the way we eat represents our most profound engagement with the natural world, and that industrial eating obscures crucially important ecological relationships and connections. On December 10, 2006 The New York Times named The Omnivore's Dilemma one of the five best nonfiction books of the year. On May 8, 2007, the James Beard Foundation named The Omnivore's Dilemma its 2007 winner for the best food writing. It was the book of focus for the University of Pennsylvania's Reading Project in 2007, and the book of choice for Washington State University's Common Reading Program in 2009-10. An excerpt of the book was published in Mother Jones.^[5]

Pollan's discussion of the industrial food chain is in large part a critique of modern agribusiness. According to the book, agribusiness has lost touch with the natural cycles of farming, wherein livestock and crops intertwine in mutually beneficial circles. Pollan's critique of modern agribusiness focuses on what he describes as the overuse of corn for purposes ranging from fattening cattle to massive production of corn oil, high-fructose corn syrup, and other corn derivatives. He describes what he sees as the inefficiencies and other drawbacks of factory farming and gives his assessment of organic food production and what it's like to hunt and gather food. He blames those who set the rules (i.e., politicians in Washington, D.C., bureaucrats at the United States Department of Agriculture, Wall Street capitalists, and agricultural conglomerates like Archer Daniels Midland) of what he calls a destructive and precarious agricultural system that has wrought havoc upon the diet, nutrition, and well-being of Americans. Pollan finds hope in Joel Salatin's Polyface Farm in Virginia, which he sees as a model of sustainability in commercial farming. Pollan appears in the documentary film King Corn (2007).

In The Botany of Desire, Pollan explores the concept of co-evolution, specifically of humankind's evolutionary relationship with four plants — apples, tulips, marijuana, and potatoes — from the dual perspectives of humans and the plants. He uses case examples that fit the archetype of four basic human desires, demonstrating how each of these botanical species are selectively grown, bred, and genetically engineered. The apple reflects the desire for sweetness, the tulip beauty, the marijuana intoxication, and the potato control. Pollan then unravels the narrative of his own experience with each of the plants, which he intertwines with a well-researched exploration into their social history. Each section presents a unique element of human domestication, or the "human bumblebee" as Pollan calls it. These range from the true story of Johnny Appleseed to Pollan's first-hand research with sophisticated marijuana hybrids in Amsterdam, to the alarming and paradigm-shifting possibilities of genetically engineered potatoes.

Pollan speaking at TED in 2007

Pollan's book, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, released on January 1, 2008, explores the relationship with what he terms nutritionism and the Western diet, with a focus on late 20th century food advice given by the science community. Pollan holds that consumption of fat and dietary cholesterol do not lead to a higher rate of coronary disease, and that the reductive analysis of food into nutrient components is a flawed paradigm. He questions the view that the point of eating is to promote health, pointing out that this attitude is not universal and that cultures that perceive food as having purposes of pleasure, identity, and sociality may end up with better health. He explains this seeming paradox by vetting, and then validating, the notion that nutritionism and, therefore, the whole Western framework through which we intellectualize the value of food is more a religious and faddish devotion to the mythology of simple solutions than a convincing and reliable conclusion of incontrovertible scientific research. Pollan spends the rest of his book explicating his first three phrases: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." He contends that most of what Americans now buy in supermarkets, fast food stores, and restaurants is not in fact food, and that a practical tip is to eat only those things that people of his grandmother's generation would have recognized as food.

In 2009, his most recent book, Food Rules: An Eater's Manual was published. This short work is a condensed version of his previous efforts, intended to provide a simple framework for healthy and sustainable diet. It is divided into three sections, further explicating Pollan's principles of "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." It includes his rules (i.e., "let others sample your food" and "the whiter the bread, the sooner you'll be dead").

Pollan has contributed to Greater Good, a social psychology magazine published by the Greater Good Science Center at University of California, Berkeley. His article "Edible Ethics" discusses the intersection of ethical eating and social psychology.

In his 1998 book A Place of My Own: The Education of an Amateur Builder, Pollan methodically traced the design and construction of the out-building where he writes. The 2008 re-release of this book was re-titled A Place of My Own: The Architecture of Daydreams.

Other work[link]

Pollan is a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine, a former executive editor for Harper's Magazine, and author of five books: In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto (2008) The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (2006), The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World (2001), A Place of My Own (1997), and Second Nature A Gardener's Education (1991).

His recent work has dealt with the practices of the meat industry, and he has written a number of articles on trends in American agriculture. He has received the Reuters World Conservation Union Global Awards in environmental journalism, the James Beard Foundation Awards for best magazine series in 2003, and the Genesis Award from the Humane Society of the United States. His articles have been anthologized in Best American Science Writing (2004), Best American Essays (1990 and 2003), The Animals: Practicing Complexity (2006) and the Norton Book of Nature Writing (1990).

Pollan co-starred in the documentary, Food, Inc. (2008), for which he was also a consultant. In 2010 Pollan was interviewed for the film Queen of the Sun: What are the bees telling us?, a feature length documentary about honey bees and colony collapse disorder.^[6]

Personal life[link]

Pollan is married to landscape painter Judith Belzer; the couple met while attending Bennington College. They have a son, Isaac.^[7][8] Pollan's sister is actress Tracy Pollan, the wife of Michael J. Fox.

Criticism[link]

Writing in the American Enterprise Institute's magazine, Blake Hurst argues that Pollan offers a shallow assessment of factory farming that does not take cost into account.^[9] Daniel Engber criticized Pollan in Slate for arguing that food is too complex a subject to study scientifically and blaming reductionism for today's health ills, while at the same time using nutritional research to justify his own diet advice. He compares Pollan's "straight-forward" anti-scientific method based on only rhetoric to that used by health gurus of history who have peddled diet scams.^[10]

Pollan's work was also discussed and criticized by Jonathan Safran Foer in his non-fiction book Eating Animals. Foer criticizes Pollan's argument regarding table-fellowship. Pollan claims that a vegetarian dinner guest causes socially reprimandable inconvenience for the host. Foer responds that in the year 2010 it is easier for hosts to accommodate vegetarians than locavores as hosts will need to do extensive research to find (expensive) non factory-farmed meat.^[11]

Animal rights advocates have ethically critiqued Pollan, writing that "most of us would be hard-pressed to find it in ourselves to slaughter an animal – or to rip off her skin, or slice open her body to remove the entrails...But our distaste toward being involved in such violent acts isn’t something that should be squelched and suppressed, as Michael Pollan or Julie Powell would have us believe. No – we should be grateful for the revulsion we feel when we imagine what happens to animals in between being born and being on our plates...Our horror is a sane reaction..."^[12]

Vasile Stanescu has criticized Pollan for arguing solely for locavorism which Stanescu argues is physically unfeasible due to a basic lack of arable land. At the same time Pollan in his earlier works rarely if ever refers to reduction of meat consumption as a viable alternative. Pollan is also criticized for hypocrisy in both his support of locavorism and in his indictment of the mistreatment of organic migrant farm workers. While Pollan supports the local food movement for sustainability, his lifestyle also includes an extensive amount of flying, driving, and transportation. While Pollan condemns the unfair treatment of Mexican farm workers on organic farms, he also supports Joel Salatin who has been criticized for xenophobia and strong anti-immigrant sentiment.^[13]

Bibliography[link]

Books

Essays

Interviews

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Michael Pollan

• Official site
• Works by or about Michael Pollan in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• (video) Michael Pollan on the Politics of Food from UC Television (UCTV)
• Michael Pollan at the Internet Movie Database
• "The omnivore's next dilemma" at TED Talks
• "In Defense of Food" at The Free Library of Philadelphia, January 10, 2008
• Skewed View from the Berkeley Hills: Why Michael Pollan and Alice Waters should quit celebrating food-price hikes by Tom Philpott, Grist, April 4, 2009.
• Food and Fossil Fuels by Melissa Moser, UNC News 21 Project, [1], June 25, 2009
• Why are Farmers Afraid of Michael Pollan? by Jim Goodman, CounterPunch, Sept 25 2009
• (video) Michael Pollan on: "Deep Agriculture," at The Long Now Foundation , May 5, 2009
• Michael Pollan on "Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual" - video report by Democracy Now!