A new study from Samford University (SU) in Atlanta, GA, shows that just a small change in your diet can make a big improvement in your health. The secret, they say, is to snack often – and liberally – on ‘baby’ carrots…
The stories I was able to find on this study are uniformly short and sweet. You might say, ‘like a baby carrot’. But there may be more than meets the eye, there.
What are ‘Baby’ carrots?
The truth is, they aren’t what the ori-ginally were. In the beginning, baby carrots were just that: small, early carrots folks plucked for their tender-ness, sweetness and cute appearance.
But now, the ones you get in the store (at least) are just full-sized, full-term carrots cut down and milled – often using purpose-built water jet machines – to look like their real namesakes.
These ‘manufactured’ baby carrots may be a fraud in some senses. But they still deliver all the vitamins, minerals and other beneficial organic compounds all carrots contain.
The rationale
The rationale behind the study was based on well-known facts: carrots are the best food source for beta carotene, a powerful antioxidant. It bolsters your immune system and is a known factor in many body functions including eye health.
“What has been shown in research is that people who consume and have a high level of carotenoids have higher levels of antioxidant activity going on in the body,” explains team leader Mary Harper Simmons, a Master of Science in Nutrition student at Samford University, and author of the study. “[That] means that there are lower levels of inflammation and lower risk of chronic illnesses such as heart disease and cardiovascular disease.”
Simmons wanted to know just how large a ‘dose’ of carrots was needed to make a significant differ-ence in body carotene levels.
What they did
Simmons recruited a group of 60 young adult and randomly assigned them to different dietary inter-vention groups. Each group followed a specific regimen for four weeks.
One group was given Granny Smith apple slices (the ‘control’ group). Another ate 100 grams (about half a cup) of baby carrots a day. The third took a multivitamin supplement containing beta carotene. And the fourth consumed a combination of baby carrots and the supplement.
After four weeks on the regime, skin samples from all participants were analysed to determine each subject’s carotene levels.
What they found
The results were uneqivocal. They showed a 10.8 per cent increase in skin carotenoid scores among those who snacked on baby carrots alone. And a 21.6 per cent increase in those who combined baby carrots with the multivitamin. Surprisingly, the group taking the supplement alone showed no in-crease in beta carotene levels.
The takeaway
‘A little carrot can go a long way’ (pun intended). Whether it’s a ‘baby’ carrot or a full-sized Bugs Bunny baton, it’s all the same to your system. As little as 100 g of carrots, snacking through each day, is enough to boost your level of carotene significantly. And taking a carotene supplement along with that is twice as beneficial.
My take
I’ll bet the folks behind the study decided, at some point, that test subjects would be more amenable to ‘programmed’ snacking if the carrots looked cute. But as mentioned above, it’s important to note that any carrot of any size will do the trick.
And Simmons says her team is carrying on with additional research into the relationship between fresh carrots and the supplements, which behaved so differently on their own in the experiment.
I’m no doctor or nutritionist, but I can see perfectly (with my reading glasses). And it’s clear to me that carrots – thanks to their wide-ranging benefits – are a top choice for healthy snacking!
~ Maggie J.