Carrots - wonder vegetable of the future

This is a guest post kindly send to me from one of our readers David.

Carrots are root vegetables, first grown in Afghanistan around 900 AD, and a hundred years later in the Middle East and North Africa, both domestically and wild.They were found in Europe six hundred years later.This vegetable is best known as orange coloured, but early carrots were purple, yellow or white just like the “new breed “of carrots on sale today in supermarkets. Plus ca change!

The orange carrots we know, are a result of a genetic mutation which caused purple carrots, which have a yellow orange core, to lose their colour and turn orange. Worldwide there are over twenty species so the carrot has several shades.

Carrots will over winter in the ground but must be covered in a mulch of leaves or straw in very cold weather, because they consist of 88% water, while humans are 60% water.

Because of their high vitamin content and low calories, they are ideal to snack. For many years I believed, from information passed down by older family members, that eating carrots raw was most beneficial, while in fact it is much better to eat this vegetable cooked.

Our body only absorbs 3% of the beneficial beta carotene compound of carrots if taken raw but absorbs 40 % , eaten cooked. Beta carotene is a pigment found in plants that give them colour. Other plants high in this pigment include spinach, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, peppers, squash, and cantaloupes. Plants with the most intense colour have the highest beta carotene content. Entering our body, this extraordinary pigment converts into vitamin A, which we need for good vision, a strong immune system, and healthy mucous membranes. It’s also used as a food colourant, as in margarine, and in medical therapy where it reduces skin sensitivity to the effect of sunshine.

In recent years Dr David Hepworth and Dr Eric Whale, two leading material scientists, made an important discovery with exciting implications. They found carrot fibre differed from other cellulose compounds, usually wood or cotton, because it was easily and cleanly separated from its host. More importantly the fibre possessed miraculous strength. They named their product “Curran “, which is Gaelic for carrot. Traditionally cellulose separation for manufacturing purposes involved using strong chemicals, whereas carrot fibre does not.

These two brilliant scientists were banned from local supermarkets for buying up all the carrots for their research, but cleverly found a source from the mis shaped carrots suppliers could not sell! Carrot fibre reduced from its source, the carrot, is turned into a thick sticky pulp, and initially used to manufacture products like skateboards and fishing rods.

These scientists hope it might be used for car bodies in the future. Their prototype bright orange fishing rod won a major award soon after production being twice as strong as carbon fibre and slightly lighter. The secret of carrot fibre is the nano fibres in its cellulose, not the vegetable itself. Nanotechnology is the use of matter on an atomic, molecular or supramolecular scale [unbelievably small fibres] for industrial purposes and has exciting prospects for future development.

The University of Baghdad is researching use of plant fibres to reinforce plastic, as such fibres are cheap and easily available. They used carrot fibres left over from commercial scale production of carrot juice. Fibres were mixed with resin which produced a low cost, extraordinary durable material, with advantages of low density, good thermal insulation and less respiratory irritation. Carrot fibre, in the form of nanofiber produces one of the strongest materials yet known, and with a smooth finish. Other fibres like swede, sugar beet, jute, bamboo, flax, hemp and banana will be used in future to replace fibreglass.

One of America’s greatest entrepreneurs, Henry Ford, who first massed produced cars, was well ahead of the field even in 1930.He examined natural materials including carrots and hemp, seeking alternatives to manufacture organic car bodies which would be rust free, lightweight and dent proof.

Ford actually produced a prototype based on hemp fibres, which for economic reasons never went into production. Nowadays the steering wheel ofracing cars is made from carrot fibre paste injected into a mould to form the part.

Engineers at Lancaster University are collaborating with industry researching how concrete can be strengthened by adding “nano platelets “extracted from root vegetables including the carrots and sugar beet which are cheap and plentiful. Early research indicated these platelets significantly improved properties of concrete, where they increased the amount of calcium silicate hydrate which controls concrete’s hardness, and they stopped cracking.

From an environmental aspect, 80% of carbon emissions are caused by construction industry’s production of carbon dioxide. But using root vegetables saves 40 kilograms of carbon dioxide per cubic metre. This occurs because the much greater strength of these root vegetable fibres means smaller sections of concrete are required in building structures.

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Once again, the natural world is coming to our rescue. We are now able to utilise organic waste, previously discarded, to move into a new exciting world which benefits our environment and produces materials that last longer, and have less need for replacement.

David From Dorchester

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