What could I possibly have against these cute little “healthy” snacks that can be found in school lunchboxes across America? Well as it turns out many "baby carrots" aren't actually baby carrots at all...
It’s almost back to school time and baby carrots are one snack to keep out of your child's lunch. It may shock you... but baby carrots don't come out of the ground that way (Normally but some organic companies have designed ways to do this right... WITHOUT CHLORINE). There is no little baby carrot garden where these are harvested. Manufactured baby carrots are a result of taking all the broken and “ugly” big carrots they can’t put in the package, grinding them all up, processing them into the “baby” carrots and giving them a bath in chlorine to give them a bright happy orange color.
There are also “Cut & Peel” baby carrots that are widdled into a miniature form. If you look on the package it doesn’t say “Chlorine”, because it was added as part of manufacturing and not added as an ingredient…why is that? Packaged foods contains lots of chemicals both in the ingredients and in the manufacturing process. The tricky part is chemicals added as part of the manufacturing process are not considered to be an ingredient therefore does not have to be listed on the food label. So there is no way to tell what else is hiding in that box or package.
As defined by the EPA, Chlorine is a pesticide. Its purpose is to kill living organisms. So it would make sense that when you ingest chlorine, it kills some parts of our body like the healthy bacteria in your gut and intestinal flora for instance. Chlorine is a highly toxic, yellow-green gas most heavily used in chemical agents like household cleaners and can be found in the air near industrial areas especially around paper processing plants. Exposure to Chlorine has been linked to health problems such as sore throat, coughing, eye and skin irritation, rapid breathing, narrowing of the bronchi, wheezing, blue coloring of the skin, accumulation of fluid in the lungs, pain in the lung region, severe eye and skin burns, lung collapse, a type of asthma known as Reactive Airways Dysfunction Syndrome (RADS). Chlorine is also added to the public water supply. So not only are you drinking it, but you are absorbing it through the largest organ in your body, your skin. In fact, 2/3 of human absorption of chlorine is from inhaling the steam in the form of chloroform and fast absorption through your open pores in the warm shower or bath. The inhalation of chloroform is a suspected cause of asthma and bronchitis, especially in children… which has increased 300% in the last two decades. Other health risks associated with chloroform is cancer, potential reproductive damage, birth defects, dizziness, fatigue, headache, liver and kidney damage. Chloroform is also found in the air and in food, like baby carrots.
Conclusion: Stick to organically grown whole carrots. They are really easy to find as you can buy them at your local farmers market or grocery store. Wash them and cut them into sticks for your childs lunch box. Carrots are an excellent snack that we enjoy all the time. Enjoy!
Thanks to www.facebook.com/asheepnomore for this warning.
It’s almost back to school time and baby carrots are one snack to keep out of your child's lunch. It may shock you... but baby carrots don't come out of the ground that way (Normally but some organic companies have designed ways to do this right... WITHOUT CHLORINE). There is no little baby carrot garden where these are harvested. Manufactured baby carrots are a result of taking all the broken and “ugly” big carrots they can’t put in the package, grinding them all up, processing them into the “baby” carrots and giving them a bath in chlorine to give them a bright happy orange color.
There are also “Cut & Peel” baby carrots that are widdled into a miniature form. If you look on the package it doesn’t say “Chlorine”, because it was added as part of manufacturing and not added as an ingredient…why is that? Packaged foods contains lots of chemicals both in the ingredients and in the manufacturing process. The tricky part is chemicals added as part of the manufacturing process are not considered to be an ingredient therefore does not have to be listed on the food label. So there is no way to tell what else is hiding in that box or package.
As defined by the EPA, Chlorine is a pesticide. Its purpose is to kill living organisms. So it would make sense that when you ingest chlorine, it kills some parts of our body like the healthy bacteria in your gut and intestinal flora for instance. Chlorine is a highly toxic, yellow-green gas most heavily used in chemical agents like household cleaners and can be found in the air near industrial areas especially around paper processing plants. Exposure to Chlorine has been linked to health problems such as sore throat, coughing, eye and skin irritation, rapid breathing, narrowing of the bronchi, wheezing, blue coloring of the skin, accumulation of fluid in the lungs, pain in the lung region, severe eye and skin burns, lung collapse, a type of asthma known as Reactive Airways Dysfunction Syndrome (RADS). Chlorine is also added to the public water supply. So not only are you drinking it, but you are absorbing it through the largest organ in your body, your skin. In fact, 2/3 of human absorption of chlorine is from inhaling the steam in the form of chloroform and fast absorption through your open pores in the warm shower or bath. The inhalation of chloroform is a suspected cause of asthma and bronchitis, especially in children… which has increased 300% in the last two decades. Other health risks associated with chloroform is cancer, potential reproductive damage, birth defects, dizziness, fatigue, headache, liver and kidney damage. Chloroform is also found in the air and in food, like baby carrots.
Conclusion: Stick to organically grown whole carrots. They are really easy to find as you can buy them at your local farmers market or grocery store. Wash them and cut them into sticks for your childs lunch box. Carrots are an excellent snack that we enjoy all the time. Enjoy!
Thanks to www.facebook.com/asheepnomore for this warning.
Bummed! I have been buying a lot of pre packaged baby carrots that come with ranch dip as a way to eat more vegetables and also exercise portion control-will finish up what I have in the house but will have to rethink my purchasing habits.
ReplyDeleteold fashion way is best, "baby" carrots are also leftovers from commercial juicing. Most of the food value is gone. Just cut "sticks" the old fashioned way, knife and cutting board.
Delete"baby" carrots are just leftovers from commercial juice makers, most of what is left is just fiber. Always try to use only fresh WHOLE fruits and veggies, much better for you.
DeleteThanks so much for this info. For those that have low thyroid (hypothyroidism & Hashimoto's disease) this is helpful information as chlorine works against the thyroid same as in a chlorinated swimming pool.
DeleteThanks for this great information. For those that suffer from low thyroid or hypothyroidism and Hashimoto's disease this is helpful
Deleteinformation, just as swimming in a chlorinated pool is degrading to
your thyroid.
I watched a vid that showed actually that baby carrots are just a smaller carrot, not pieces of a big broken carrots in chemical to harden, checkm both sides of the arguement, i have
DeleteI buy organic baby carrots. If chlorine is listed as a pesticide it seams like they shouldn't be able to use it even in the manufacture of organic food. Do they use chlorine in the manufacture of ORGANIC BABY CARROTS??
ReplyDeleteI agree with your comments. I did not know about this. How dare they think that it is ok to poison our children, because that is exactly what they are doing. Tesco have stopped selling organic veg. I asked them why and they said it is not cost effective. Caring lot, aren't they.
DeleteIn the US and Canada, companies can use chlorine in manufacturing without telling us, even if it'll be labelled organic
DeleteChlorine can be used, even if labelled as organic, in US and Canada at least
DeleteIn the US and Canada, companies can use chlorine in manufacturing without telling us, even if it'll be labelled organic
Deletechlorine is not the only thing being used and not listed. Some are listed, but you know not what they are. "Natural and artificial" ingredients contain 1,400 different 'classified' chemicals. "Spices" are over 1,000 chemical combinations.
DeleteMonsanto is trying to change the definition of "organic", if they win, organic will be as meaningless as "natural".
Is this true of Earthbound Organic Baby Carrots. My dogs love them!
ReplyDeleteAnother thing to remember about these "processed" carrots, organic or not, is that the vitamin content is directly under the skin, so when they grind away the skin, they are grinding away all the nutritional value!
ReplyDeleteStick to buying organic "whole" carrots, with the skin on, and take a couple of extra minutes to wash and cut them up. It's SOOOOO much better for you and your kids, and your dogs, too!
Our society is becoming a bit too lazy, with all of the processed foods out now. I realize everyone is busy, but seriously, taking the time to wash and cut up your veggies will benefit you and your family tremendously! :O)
Basically, an salad product, found in your everyday supermarket has been washed with this chlorine/water wash.. This reduces bacteria in the food.. (that's why the package says to wash before consuming..) Organic is one thing, but if you live in a county that allows the septic tank operators to spray refuse on crops, then you have bigger worries than a light wash with bleach water..
ReplyDeleteNonsense..most fruits and vegetables are given a rinse in water with a few ppm chlorine which is a biocide to kill bacteria and other pathogens. Like your swimming pools and municipal water treated with chlorine for drinking.
ReplyDeleteWater is also a poison if you drink too much of it...baby carrots kill no one . Educate yourselves and stop with the BS..
Nonsense..chlorine is used in small amount of a few ppm to kill bacteria and is a biocide. Most fruits and vegetables are washed in this way. There is no more chlorine than in your swimming pool, so if you are afraid stay away from water, its also in most municipal drinking water as a biocide for same reasons. You can also die from drinking too much water, it can be toxic too..too much BS and bad information being passed along.. just a lot of NONSENSE HERE
ReplyDeleteTrue.....BUT
DeleteTrue...BUT, do you agree that Chlorine is good for you? I grew up when kids did not have to get Vaccinated and Booster shots, we drank water that came from a local pond, hauled by hand in buckets. My Grandparents lived in a era when the only way to get food was to grow their own and/or hunt animals, all four of them live well into their late 80's and 90's.
DeleteToday we live in a society where the Supermarket have become the Farmer and Hunter and because they operate on PROFIT, the use of chemicals is rampant. That's why in North America Heat Disease and Diabetic have taken over as the number one killers and at a very early age.
I dislike baby carrots because they have no flavor! They are pretty nasty if you ask me. I thought I just didn't like carrots, but had "real" carrots at my sister's house and they were delicious. Full-size, real carrots for me from now on!!!
ReplyDeleteI worked in Nuclear/Chemical/Biological Defense in the military for several years, and as such we learned *lots* about various chemical properties, including chlorine which was used as a chemical weapon in WWI. One of the primary characteristics of chlorine is that its high volatility, which means it breaks down and dissipates very quickly. This is why it's so expensive to maintain a swimming pool: you have to keep dumping chlorine into it all the time because it goes away quickly in water or in gas form. So, they take big, ugly, unsellable carrots and chop them down into small, cute carrots. You might lose some nutrition from the skin, but you lose that if you peel your carrots anyway; a far cry from removing "all the nutritional value". So they treat them with chlorine to kill germs? It breaks down and goes away very quickly after that, so I don't really care. You know what else has chlorine in it? Pretty much every decent-sized city's tap water, but people still drink it. The concentration of chlorine in swimming pools is way higher than anything you have to worry about from "baby carrots", but millions of kids still swim in them, with no health effects.
ReplyDeleteDon't like them because they have no flavor? That is a very valid reason to not eat them, but don't get scared away just because they're treated briefly with chlorine or because they're whittled down from larger carrots. They're fine, and I'd still much rather my kids happily chomp on them than most of the awful, overly-processed "fruit snacks" or "granola bars" that most people think are healthy. In the end, "baby carrots" are still single-ingredient vegetables. Check the lengthy ingredient lists for most of the other "healthy" kids' snacks out there. They're far worse.
Thank you for some common sense truth!!
DeleteThank you for some common sense and scientific truth!!
DeleteFINALLY....someone with an educated and intelligent rebuttal to this issue. I have to wholly agree and have checked multiple sources which come to the same conclusion. THANK YOU
DeleteHey, you spelled whittled correctly! And you also provided a little more insight to the issue. I've never heard of large carrots being ground up and then being reconstituted into a baby carrot. The whittled-down version, yes. But not the reassembled version the article mentions. Exactly what do they use to "glue" all the pieces together into a smooth, natural mouth-feel carrot, I wonder? I know about meat glue. Do they now have vegetable glue too?
DeleteI don't know where you buy your baby carrots but here in northern WI what we have in our stores are sweet tender tasty and never even have the slightest smell of chlorine. Not sure what you guys are buying but ours are awesome. When I cut them up into my chicken dumpling soup they actually sweeten the soup alot. If you want to worry about processed foods read the labels on the crap you are buying in the freezer section. A full paragraph of ingredients you can't even pronounce. Really people? BABY CARROTS?????????
ReplyDeleteI think people worry to much scared of every thing there is good and bad ingredients in every thing we consume unless your growing and raising your own food. There is nothing you can do abouy it healthy or not your still going to die one day.
ReplyDeleteThink I read recently that you can 'celan' the residual chlorine off them by bathing them briefly in a mixture or apple cider vinegar, baking soda (or perhaps bicarbonate - not sure which) and (obviously) non-chlorinated water. 5-10 minutes would suffice.
ReplyDeleteWhat scares me is that the labeling laws are inefficient,so big companies can get away with adding anything they like.
ReplyDeleteI think it is those laws that we need to see change worldwide, so people can make choice about what or what not to put in their baskets/bodies
I think it is the labelling laws that need to change worldwide so people can make a choice in what to put in their basket/bodies.
ReplyDeletePotassium of permanganate is also used, and has been for decades. There are nematodes on vegetables that will make you sick.It is necessary that foods be washed. If you look closly at celery you may see long black lines, those are nematodes.
ReplyDeleteCarrots are easy to grow in a container I use bus pans that way you know they are real baby carrots!
ReplyDeleteDoes this apply for organic baby carrots that are already peeled and washed? I also drink some organic carrot juice and swore it smelled like chlorine!
ReplyDeleteDoes this apply for organic baby carrots that are already peeled and washed? I also drink some organic carrot juice and swore it smelled like chlorine!
ReplyDeleteI'll take an infinitesimal amount of chlorine over listeria any day.
ReplyDeleteI'll take an infinitesimal amount of chlorine over listeria any day.
ReplyDeleteBut they have no video proof of this process? Seriously it makes no sense. Cut a baby carrot in rounds or slices and there is a root center. If baby carrots were ground up and reformed in to that shape, that wouldnt be there. Also, there are different varieties of carrots, and there is a good chance that baby carrots are formed from a small carrot variety. It just makes no sense at all, given the texture of a raw carrots, that baby carrots come from a ground up carrots. Makes more sense that they are cut out of and shaped from a smaller variety of carrot.
ReplyDeleteMy only complaint is that I did not realize that these diaperss did not have the stretch in the waist. Otherwise, exactly what it says it is! Plus, free delivery. I was very happy.
ReplyDeletehonest diaper reviews
You guys realize that even organic fruits and vegetables are processed with chemicals, right? USDA Certified Organic fruits and veggies only have to be "organic" once the reach the United States border. Outside of the USA, manufacturers can use what ever chemicals they like in your food as it is not with in US jurisdiction. If you really want to eat organic, only buy local. That's the best way to go.
ReplyDeleteAlso, this information is total crap. "Baby" carrots ARE made from the ugly carrots, but they are only shaped. There are no more chemicals added than regular carrots. Just saying.
Does no one wonder about the article when it's saying
ReplyDelete"2/3 of human absorption of chlorine is from inhaling the steam in the form of chloroform and fast absorption through your open pores in the warm shower or bath"?
Let me see, we're supposed to be worried about eating some food that has been washed to kill germs like, say, salmonella, because they use Chlorine to kill those germs that can harm humans if consumed, but we are all still okay to drink chlorinated water and take showers and baths in chlorinated water (not to mention swimming in chlorinated pools or soaking in chlorinated hot tubs). Really? And we're all going to get all paranoid about eating a few carrots once in awhile? I agree, grow your own if you can, and maybe you don't want to pay the high price of eating a "baby carrot" that isn't really a baby carrot at all, maybe just go for the organic whole carrots and get back to cutting them up some for yourself. But maybe we don't have to be overly paranoid about this... in the grand scheme of things there are a heck of a lot more important things to worry about than getting a bit more chlorine in your system from a few carrots.
Chlorine, like fire, has been a huge benefit to mankind through the killing of pathogens that would otherwise cause disease. No, it is not perfect, and yes, there are downsides, but the benefits far outweigh the costs. It's incredibly irresponsible to not even bring that up in an article like this.
ReplyDeletePeople will believe anything if it is 1) on the Internet or 2) on Fox News. :)
ReplyDelete