Carrots may as well save the world with superman. After all, this all-time favourite Looney Toons character has been munching one of the all-time favourite superfoods: carrots.
Truth is, there could be a range of superpowers that you can get from regularly eating carrots. Super vision can be acquired from carrots’ high level of beta carotene. In fact, a single old carrot has enough of this nutrient to supply ample vitamin A for an entire day.
You can also have an indestructible shield against lung cancer as various studies reveal.
In some culture, the succulent root crop is also used as an alternative medicine for its antibiotic property. Orthodox French doctors use puree carrots to cure diarrhea among infants, liver problems and jaundice.
Recent experiments also found carrots’ positive impact on blood circulation, increasing the RBCs and preventing atherosclerosis.
Is Purple the New Super?
Purple carrots may sound like a perfect example of a make-believe food taken straight out from the pages of Alice in Wonderland, but they exist – and they exist for a reason.
Contrary to first impressions, purple carrots are not genetically modified. They originated from ancient Persia and is now currently cultivated in some parts of Australia. Over the years, this variety of carrots almost vanished from the market, as producers have dedicated larger plantation for mainstream orange carrots.
The purple ones are pretty much the same as the orange carrots, being cooked and eaten in the same manner. But the health benefits you can acquire from eating purple carrots are far more superior to those you can get from the orange succulents.
What Purple Carrots Has to Offer
Researchers from the University of Queensland conducted an experiment with the purple carrot juice in 2010. Findings point to evidences that the beta-carotene contained in the carrots can almost instantly reverse adverse effects from a high carbohydrate and high fat diet. This was a promising breakthrough in the ongoing discoveries for the cures for metabolic syndromes.
But the therapeutic effects of the carrots are yet to be proven.
Nonetheless, nutritionists have approved of the carrot’s ability to hamper increase of cholesterol level and build up of fats around the heart. It can also regulate bile production and other liver enzymes.
Scientists who fed the carrots to lab rats observed a significant decline in the inflammation, blood sugar levels, blood pressure, fat disposition, and uric acid concentration of the animals. At the same time, their tolerance to glucose has greatly improved.
Experts suggest that this is the result of the anti-inflammatory and anthocyanins of the carrots known to control the metabolic syndrome symptoms in the body. Follow up discoveries then revealed that purple carrots have twenty eight times more anthocyanins than its orange counterpart.
Ready for Purple?
Orange carrots have been known a superfood long before purple ones made a buzz. Having the same species, both varieties are expected to have full breath of amazing health benefits. Then again, experts are still yet to affirm that purple carrots are indeed superfoods.