The Health Benefits of Carrots
Grown widely in Asia and Europe and popularly eaten all around, carrots are a popular vegetable. They are largely depicted in children’s story books as the favorite food of rabbits but are mainly noted for their many health benefits. This orange vegetable contains many health benefits and is widely known for containing encouraging amounts of many essential nutrients which brig health and wellness to human body. The vegetable is used in numerous recipes all around the globe and is also eaten popularly all alone in fresh form or with salads. It is also often eaten in boiled form by those who are following dieting regimes to lose weight.
Carrots are eaten and consumed in numerous ways. They can be boiled, steamed, fried or cooked in stews or soups. Also, they can be kept as a whole, cut into slices or shopped into pieces. While green foods and green vegetables are best known for providing health benefits, the green part of a carrot is not eaten by humans. This however, does not imply that a carrot is a green vegetable but just the fact not everything green amongst vegetables is edible. Nonetheless, in a few cultures, the green portion is eaten.
In India and Pakistan, a carrot dessert known as Gaajar ka Halwa (halwa of carrot) is extremely popular while in China, the vegetable is added to the traditional Chinese rice, however, this recipe may vary and not always, a carrot might be made use of. Coming towards the health benefits that carrots provide, there is a long list to go through. Some of the most commonly known and undoubted benefits of the orange vegetable are enhancement of vision and prevention from cancer.
The Vitamin A content of a carrot is mainly responsible for the widely known sentence that ‘carrot is good for the eyes’. Actually, the vegetable contains beta-carotene which, when gets into the liver, gets converted into Vitamin A. When this Vitamin A gets into the retina of the eye, it gets converted to rhodopsin. It is a purple pigment known to enhance night vision. In addition to this, beta-carotene has also been known fit for preventing macular degeneration. According to some studies, by eating a carrot regularly, one can greatly help prevent cancers such as colon cancer, lung cancer and breast cancer.
Two agents known for giving this property to the vegetable are falcarinol and falcarindiol. It has been found out that carrots are the only natural source of falcarinol, a natural pesticide that helps in prevention of fungal diseases. Beta-carotene also slows down the aging process by regulating the metabolism. This vegetable can also be a good food for those conscious for the skin, hair and nails as it promotes a healthy and glowing skin, prevents sun damage and dryness of skin and nails and also prevents acne, uneven toning, blemishes and pigmentation.
By consuming carrots, one can gain many other health benefits such as prevention of stroke, cleansing the body and promotion of healthy cardiac activity. Altogether, the vegetable is one body of endless benefits and its consumption becomes extremely healthy.
Christiaan Janssens
CRO Akwa Wellness