Buying This Food
Look for: Firm, bright orange yellow carrots with fresh, crisp green tops.
Avoid: Wilted or shriveled carrots, pale carrots, or carrots with brown spots on the skin.
Storing This Food
Trim off the green tops before you store carrots. The leafy tops will wilt and rot long before
the sturdy root.
Keep carrots cool. They will actually gain vitamin A during their first five months in
storage. Protected from heat and light, they can hold to their vitamins at least another two
and a half months.
Store carrots in perforated plastic bags or containers. Circulating air prevents the for-
mation of the terpenoids that make the carrots taste bitter. Do not store carrots near apples
or other fruits that manufacture ethylene gas as they continue to ripen; this gas encourages
the development of terpenoids.
Store peeled carrots in ice water in the refrigerator to keep them crisp for as long as
48 hours.
Preparing This Food
Scrape the carrots. Very young, tender carrots can be cleaned by scrubbing with a veg-
etable brush.
Soak carrots that are slightly limp in ice water to firm them up. Don’t discard slightly
wilted intact carrots; use them in soups or stews where texture doesn’t matter.
What Happens When You Cook This Food
Since carotenes do not dissolve in water and are not affected by the normal heat of cooking,
carrots stay yellow and retain their vitamin A when you heat them. But cooking will dissolve
some of the hemicellulose in the carrot’s stiff cell walls, changing the vegetable’s texture and
making it easier for digestive juices to penetrate the cells and reach the nutrients inside.
How Other Kinds of Processing Affect This Food
Freezing. The characteristic crunchy texture of fresh carrots depends on the integrity of its
cellulose- and hemicellulose-stiffened cell walls. Freezing cooked carrots creates ice crystals
that rupture these membranes so that the carrots usually seem mushy when defrosted. If
possible, remove the carrots before freezing a soup or stew and add fresh or canned carrots
when you defrost the dish.
Carrots