The carrot conundrum

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You know those nice sweet, tender little carrots that come all wrapped in a big bag ready-to-eat (prete a manger)? What I want to know is how they became so perfectly peeled? I can think of three possible answers but all are too terrible to accept:

1) - Thousands of sweat shop laborers, probably children, toil from dawn to dusk in a tin shacks in some miserable 3rd world country, culling, peeling and bagging these cute lil carrots for the benefit of rich Republican carrot consumers

2) - A highly mechanized Agro-Busines has designed fiendishly clever computer controlled mechanical and/or chemical processes that harvest the lil orange beauties and gently peel them for our snacking pleasure (thereby throwing thousands of needy 3rd world urchins out of work)

3) - Worst of all, a cabal of evil bio-chemists at ADM Corp, USDA, Purdue U and U Missouri have collaborated in a GM food product that manifests as skinless baby carrots. This food product is grotesquely unnatural and condemns a generation of carrot eaters to death by carotid artery disease.

If anyone understands this carrot conundrum, please clue me in. Thanks.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), July 05, 2001

Answers

Dolt, baby carrots don't have skins.

-- (Carrotie_kid@ND.SU), July 05, 2001.

More than you probably wanted to know

Hey, if you ever get to Easton, Pennsylvania, I recommend the tour of the Crayola center where you get to see how crayons and other products are made. Way cool.

-- Firemouse (orange@beta.carotene), July 05, 2001.


From the above link.....

Carrots start out as 8- to 12-inch long whole pieces that are cut into 2-inch chunks, optically scanned, peeled, polished and sized into four diameters. Those peeled baby carrots convey to the weigh scales via a new product distribution system that includes Iso-FloŽ stainless steel vibratory conveyors from Key Technology. "This style of conveyor is a very clean, sanitary way to convey product," remarks Burton.

Am I reading this right? They grow regular carrots, cut them into 2" pieces and 'peel' the pieces to make 'baby' carrots?

-- Pam (Pam@j.o.e), July 05, 2001.


It would appear that these carrots are babies like those XXX "teens" on the Net are teens?

-- Firemouse (anotherillusion@bites.thedust), July 05, 2001.

I like them little guys. The sweetness definately varies by brand and maybe that's where Pam's obs come in. Still if they were paring adult carrots that badly you'd think they were starting with bad stock. The little fellas ain't pithy. Mechanized harvest is my guess. I think the little guys are real and Lars, it's probably the same tater peeling machines they use in the army.

-- Carlos (riffraff@cybertime.net), July 06, 2001.


Thank you all for your comments. I was so stimulated that I located this web site. The mystery of baby carrots is resolved. I can sleep in full knowledge that baby carrots are cut and "lathed to uniform length" from long narrow carrots and the skin is removed by rotary peelers.

What a country!

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), July 06, 2001.


Damn.

Is there still an Easter Bunny?

-- Carlos (riffraff@cybertime.net), July 07, 2001.


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