Rainbow carrots

 

Rainbow carrots

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

I have noticed a recent trend towards rainbow carrots. They are being promoted as a ‘superfood,’ whatever that means.

I read that they were once found only at farmers’ markets and high-end greengroceries, at an appropriately inflated price. They are still more expensive than the usual carrot-coloured articles, but are now readily obtainable at most  well-known superstores in the UK.

I bought some to try, but found the muddy colours quite off-putting, and not a feast for the eyes. It’s a good thing I wasn’t born five thousand years ago, when carrots in central Asia were usually purple, or even black or white. In Ancient Rome they were regarded as an herbal medicine and an aphrodisiac.

When carrots began to be more widely cultivated, in the Middle East, they were introduced to mediaeval Europe by Arab traders and were available in purple, red, yellow, and white. The carrots we now consider traditional only began to appear in the seventeenth century. The legend was that the Dutch farmers cultivated the orange variety to honour William of Orange who fought to free the Dutch from Spain. More prosaically, orange carrots were probably selectively bred as sweeter alternatives to the more bitter yellow carrots.

All carrots are beneficial. They are low in calories but high in vitamins and minerals, tasty, crunchy, and good for overall health.