Carrots Trivia | 30 facts about the orange vegetable

Who said that only Bugs Bunny loves carrots? Many people love eating them (or drinking them as juice).

Let’s find out more about them!

1. The carrot  is a root vegetable.
2. It is usually orange in color.
3. Despite that there are also purple, black, red, white, and yellow cultivars.
4. They are a domesticated form of the wild carrot, Daucus carota, native to Europe and Southwestern Asia. T
5. he plant probably originated in Persia.
6. It was originally cultivated for its leaves and seeds.
7. The most commonly eaten part of the plant is the taproot.
8. Although the stems and leaves are also eaten.
9. The domestic carrot has been selectively bred for its greatly enlarged, more palatable, less woody-textured taproot.
10. The carrot is a biennial plant in the umbellifer family, Apiaceae.
11. At first, it grows a rosette of leaves while building up the enlarged taproot.
12. Fast-growing cultivars mature within three months (90 days) of sowing the seed, while slower-maturing cultivars need a month longer (120 days).
13. The roots contain high quantities of alpha- and beta-carotene, and are a good source of vitamin K and vitamin B6.
14. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reports that world production of carrots and turnips (these plants are combined by the FAO) for 2018 was 40 million tonnes, with 45% of the world total grown in China.
15. Carrots are widely used in many cuisines, especially in the preparation of salads.
16. Carrot salads are a tradition in many regional cuisines.
17. The word is first recorded in English circa 1530.
18. It was borrowed from Middle French carotte.
19. Carotte was borrowed from Late Latin carōta, and carota was borrowed from Greek or karōtón, originally from the Indo-European root *ker- (horn), due to its horn-like shape.
20. In Old English, carrots (typically white at the time) were not clearly distinguished from parsnips.
21. The two were collectively called moru or more .
22. Various languages still use the same word for “carrot” as they do for “root”.
23. People first grew carrots as medicine, not food, for a variety of ailments.
24. Carrots can be traced back about 5,000 years through historical documents and paintings. No one knows exactly when the first carrots appeared, because many people mistook them for parsnips, a close relative of the carrot.
25. A medium-size carrot has 25 calories, 6 grams of carbs, and 2 grams of fiber.
26. The veggie is an excellent source of vitamin A, providing more than 200% of your daily requirement in just one carrot.
27. Carrots are loaded with beta-carotene, a natural chemical that the body changes into vitamin A. The deeper orange the carrot, the more beta-carotene you’re getting.
28. Mel Blanc, the voice of cartoon character Bugs Bunny, reportedly did not like carrots.
29. The deeper orange the carrot, the more beta-carotene you’re getting.
30. Baby carrots aren’t a type of carrot