Might want to read this/Baby Carrots
 

I know most of us feed our furbabies baby carrots. I got sick when this was sent to me today. Nothing in life is safe.




Baby Carrots


The following is information from a farmer who grows and packages carrots for IGA, METRO, LOBLAWS, etc

The small cocktail (baby) carrots you buy in small plastic bags are made using the larger crooked or deformed carrots which are put through a machine which cuts and shapes them into cocktail carrots - most people probably know this already.

What you may not know and should know is the following:

Once the carrots are cut and shaped into cocktail carrots they are dipped in a solution of water and chlorine in order to preserve them. (this is the same chlorine used in your pool).

Since they do not have their skin or natural protective covering, they give them a higher dose of chlorine.

You will notice that once you keep these carrots in your refrigerator for a few days, a white covering will form on the carrots. This is the chlorine which resurfaces. At what cost do we put our health at risk to have esthetically pleasing vegetables?



Chlorine is a very well-known carcinogen, which causes Cancer.. I thought this was worth passing on. Pass it on to as many people as possible in hopes of informing them where these carrots come from and how they are processed.


I used to buy those baby carrots for vegetable dips. Not any more...

Confirmed by Snopes

snopes.com: Baby Carrots



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Can you get rid of the chlorine by washing/scrubbing?

It seems like there's nothing left that's safe! My guys love their baby carrots!

Yuck!!! Let's go buy a ranch and make our own food...

Some of those claims have actually been dispelled by that Snopes link though some of it is true, but the problem probably doesn't lie mainly with the chlorine issue.

"As an antimicrobial treatment to minimize or reduce the contamination of the finished product, cocktail carrots can be treated with chlorine. Those that are will be subsequently rinsed with potable water to remove the excess chlorine before being packaged." (One should make it a general rule to rinse out all vegetables, etc, before consuming and then hope for the best if you're not then cooking it :p.)

"According to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the use of chlorine as an antimicrobial treatment is a current accepted practice in the processing for all ready-to-eat vegetables..."

"As for the 'white film' the emailed alert claims is the 'chlorine coming to the surface,' that white blush is caused by dehydration of the cut surface -- were you to pull a carrot from your own garden, slice it in half and place it in your refrigerator, it too would manifest that same whitish appearance on the cut portion once the carrot dried out a bit. Cocktail carrots are more prone to develop this only because their entire surface area is a cut surface."

"Generally, consumers can determine whether small carrots are true baby carrots or not by looking at what's listed on the packaging. Labels that say 'baby carrots' appear on packages of very young carrots that are harvested while the vegetables are still quite tiny. Labels that proclaim 'baby-cut carrots' appear on packages of petite carrots made by chopping down and polishing much larger versions of the vegetable."

What concerns me more is that: "...'baby-cut carrots' have been specially bred to contain more sugar than their standard sized cousins because this extra sweetness appeals more strongly to children." And then there's the colouring. Personally, I really don't much care for genetically enhanced or some cross-bred produce. However, I have not researched on how the "bright orange color has...been bred into them..." so, to be fair, it could very well have been done through a very safe and natural method. :(

I think you need to read the Snopes report yourself, what you posted is the email that is being sent to people, the Snopes report reads the various rumors being passed as fact, and reports which part is true and which is false. This email, like most rumors, has a few facts mixed with falsifications. The actual Snopes report says:

"These carrots are treated with chlorine, and then rinsed. The white blush you see coming to the surface is not the chlorine, but is due to the "dehydration of the cut surface". If you took a fresh carrot from you garden and cut it in half it would manifest the same whitish appearance. "


Chlorine is one of the safest antibacterial agents there is, remember ordinary table salt is half chlorine. When reading the Snopes Report do not just read the first part, that's the email that is being sent, but read the rest of the document.

Actually it's NOT confirmed by snopes. Read the link...

You may be interested to know...carrots ...baby or otherwise can cause digestive blockages in dogs.

Thank goodness my girl isn't a fan of carrots in any shape or form cooked or raw unless it's grounded down and mixed into food where she might not notice it. Whenever I see Cesar Milan feeding carrots to the dogs and how much they love them, I would always think how great it would be if my girl would only be like the millions of other dogs who seem crazy for carrots... and bananas... and green beans. :p :p :p

Although I don't like the thought of Ellie or I ingesting chlorine, I think it's added to some water supplies anyway, so sometimes there is no way around it.

This is one of the reasons; I'm not comfortable with raw carrots. I had a friend in grade school, who choked on a carrot; it got lodged in her esophagus, and it had to be surgically removed. The doctor said that they don't dissolve like other foods; I won't give Joey any raw carrots.

So much for buying organic, eh? Or don't they count?

Organic means that they don't use chemical fertilizers on your plants they use "natural" fertilizers. Natural fertilizers, like manure, are filled with bacteria, you better hope they use something to kill these. Chlorine is really safe, just not if you're a bacterium.

Gotchya! Poop then. I'm eating carrots with poop...wonderful. :cool:

Lol, that reminds me of an outdoor party I attended once. The hostess had a plate of fresh vegetables, with some dip, and one of the guests saw that a little dip had fallen on the table, and he scooped it up with a carrot stick. As soon as it hit his mouth, he discovered it wasn't "dip" but the "end product" of a bird flying overhead. :D