Baby Carrots

A friend of mine recently forwarded to me some information about baby carrots. Many of you may already know this, but I figured it was worth a post:
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The following is information from a farmer who grows and packages carrots for IGA, METRO, LOBLAWS, etc

The small cocktail (baby) carrots you buy in small plastic bags are made using the larger crooked or deformed carrots which are put through a machine which cuts and shapes them into cocktail carrots - most people probably know this already..

What you may not know and should know is the following:

Once the carrots are cut and shaped into cocktail carrots they are dipped in a solution of water and chlorine in order to preserve them. (this is the same chlorine used in your pool).

Since they do not have their skin or natural protective covering, they give them a higher dose of chlorine.

You will notice that once you keep these carrots in your refrigerator for a few days, a white covering will form on the carrots. This is the chlorine which resurfaces. At what cost do we put our health at risk to have esthetically pleasing vegetables?

Chlorine is a very well-known carcinogen, which causes Cancer.. I thought this was worth passing on. Pass it on to as many people as possible in hopes of informing them where these carrots come from and how they are processed.

I used to buy those baby carrots for vegetable dips.

I know that I will never buy them again!!!!

Confirmed by Snopes:

Snopes.com : Baby Carrots ..... Are baby carrots made from deformed full-sized carrots that have been soaked in chlorine? ...--> Contaminated Food --> Carrot and Shtick Carrot and Shtick Claim: Baby carrots are made from deformed full-sized carrots that have been.... ...carrots that you buy in grocery stores come from deformed crooked big carrots. They are put through a machine to become small cocktail carrots. This part... ..
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i think i had heard something to this effect once but i conveniently put it out of my mind. it does sound gross, though. i just know that if i buy "real" carrots, the liklihood of me skinning and cutting them is nil. so i figure some carrots are better than none. but perhaps that's a bad call. they are just so darn convenient! i also heard once that shredded cheese has an additive to it that keeps it from sticking together, which sometimes results in the whitish covering you see on the cheese when it's been sitting in the grocery coolers for awhile. i don't remember what the additive is.

....ahh, i just looked it up. (what did we do before google?) cheese manufacturers typically add cellulose to shredded cheese to prevent clumping. i found this:
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Method of treating a divided cheese product for anticaking United States Patent 5626893
Abstract:An anticaking agent which reduces the stickiness of the chunked, diced, or shredded cheese and improves the functionality of cheese is formulated of fine mesh vegetable flour, bentonite, cellulose, and antimycotic agents or bacterial cultures. This anticaking agent also will reduce the yeast and mold growth. This discovery is also extended to include various flavors, colors, enzymes and other supplements into the anticaking agent, to ultimately add to the cheese.
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I don't know, though, how that may decrease the quality or healthiness of the cheese. Still, it reminds me that once again, the more "packaged" food items I buy, the more additives, extras, and potential chemcials they contain. The other day I was waiting to pay for my groceries at Hy-Vee and I was watching the woman and her two kids behind me in line place their groceries on the conveyer belt. They bought about 7 boxes of capri sun (each contained about 10 individually packaged "juice products"), lunchables, microwave meals..... etc. I was feeling pretty good about my own groceries at that moment, which included a lot of fresh produce and some bulk grains. I'm certainly not convenience food-free, however, and my habit of buying organic as much as I feel I can afford lends itself to weekly or bi-weekly grocery bills that average between $100-200. We all make trade-offs I suppose. This question of what we eat has been in my mind a lot lately.

I heard on NPR once a little snippet of an interview with an author who recently published a book about food in our country in this generation. I don't remember the author's name or the book title. Sarah, did you mention this on your blog once? Not sure if it's the same book.... I believe the gist was that he wrote something about how the food we commonly eat as a country now is less and less "real" because we process things so much and they are far from their natural food-like state by the time we eat them. It sounds like something to add to my Goodreads list. If anyone is familiar with this, please speak up...