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An email came to me, warning me that baby carrots are dipped in chlorine. They are made from deformed carrots, peeled and then dipped in a high solution of chlorine to keep them from turning white and being deemed, “bad”. This made me scratch my head. Food dipped in chlorine that I am feeding my children, who love baby carrots. Thus the research began. Could this be true?
I hate to say it but, yes.
When a baby carrot turns white they call this, “white blushing” and often times this “white blushing” causes the bags of carrots to pulled from the shelf and thrown away. Consumer waste. To prevent this consumer waste the carrots are then dipped in the chlorine.
You can also go find the patented information on washing carrots and the dilution rate of the chlorine the carrots are dipped in, as though that matters.
I like baby carrots and find them convenient and my children like them. After reading this and finding out the truth, I will be buying my carrots organic and whole. So much for convenient and packaging, a lessen I should know by now. I suppose if I were to choose the baby carrots I would be washing them very well in my favorite veggie wash. From what I read, some say that it doesn’t matter that a carrot was dipped in bleach but I guess you decide.
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OMG. That is so disgusting! Are organic baby carrots dipped too? Well, they must be because they are orange. Yuck yuck yuck! Whole carrots all of the time for us too now! EW!
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Wow, this is really scary. I’ll be sticking with the organic ones I usually buy. I hope this isn’t the case with them.
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Interesting. I always though that some baby carrots tasted like bleached, but I thought that was my imagination. It was very faint, but I guess I’m sensitive to it.
Wow, that is so gross. I have been steering clear of them to avoid the plastic bag but now will abandon them altogether. Tx. And bleccch!
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Baby carrots always creep me out - they are just so unnaturally smooth. Another reason not to eat them…
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I’ve lately been buying whole carrots at the farmers’ market and washing, peeling, and cutting them up. Now I’m glad and will continue this- it’s worth the extra work!
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My kids have long since learned to love whole carrots. I just wash them up and the kids are just fine with it. For me this was a cost saving measure. Glad to have another reason.
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I’m glad everyone was as shocked as I was. Another reason to buy from a farm and wash them yourself.
I really can’t believe this. I guess I should stop being surprised by the environmentally unsound and unhealthy practices that we are subjected to.
Thanks for letting us know about this Sommer.
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No problem Kim. I know, I’m surprised all the time and then wonder why? Sometimes I think that having faith isn’t a bad thing.
That is interesting, but I am not all that surprised by it. So many of our foods are waxed or coated with something-or-other. It takes a little more time to peel and cut whole carrots, but at least it will save us all some money, AND we won’t have to eat bleach!
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I just watched a food documentary on tomatoes, and they wash these in a water/chlorine bath too. I suspect that probably most commercial veggies are done this way. I am concerned about organic guidelines. If the farmer grows without pesticides, and organic, but then washes in chlorine for mass sales, can it still be certified organic?
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Maybe you should go to snopes when you get emails like this…. you should never believe all forwarded emails!!!
http://www.snopes.com/food/tainted/carrots.asp
I’m guessing you all drink water? Tap water is also sanitized with chlorine and from my research I’ve done on this topic the amount of chlorine used in the processing of the carrots is less than that in municipal tap water. Also, under food processing guidelines the carrots must also be rinsed after the water/chlorine bath in potable water. The “blush” is not the chlorine it is dehydration. It happens with your big carrots too. I suggest the general public do their own research before buying into random emails.
Yuck! I’ve been back and forth about buying baby carrots, as I knew they were a convience food, therefore more expensive, but figured I would splurge since the kids love them so much.
Didn’t know I was doing the kids a “favor” by giving them something soaked in chlorine!
BTW, I read the snopes article, which disputed the claim that the “white stuff” was the bleach (although this blog made no mention of, so not sure why people are pointing that out…). But snopes did confirm that they are soaked in bleach, so yeah… eww. I guess things like tomatoes are different, because they still have the skin on them, which protects it. The carrots are peeled, then put in the bleach solution, so it’s more likely to absorb INTO the carrot.
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Yuck! I don’t eat carrots but I will be sharing this with my MIL and mom cause they both do.
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Im confused i dont know what to believe whether its harmful or not i do know this in todays world there a lot of things our food is dipped and soaked in we never really know what we are consuming we just take our chances we have to eat
Please go to FreshPlaza.com and read the article there. These Carrots otherwiase know as “cut carrots” are harmless.
http://www.freshplaza.com/news_detail.asp?id=29229
Before you all jump at the “Yuck” bit check out these resources about the baby carrot email warning.
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/260034
http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/fooddrink/a/baby_carrots.htm
http://www.freshplaza.com/news_detail.asp?id=29229
http://www.snopes.com/food/tainted/carrots.asp
Oh yes millions have died from eating these so called clorinated carrots. I love the part about “deformed” carrots bieng used too, as if some carrots are bad because they did not grow perfectly straight.
The turning white is simply them drying out - with no skin they will turn white like dry skin. Try it on your organic carrots some time, peel one then leave it in a baggie for a week.
If they were so highy clorinated you would taste it. PS there is clorine and other chemicals in most water.
And due to comments posted on sites like this there is now a higher rate of cavities in children due to parents giving bottled water instead of the floridated water from taps.
Scarth,
I think if you are comfortable eating carrots dipped in bleach (little or a lot) and feel okay with that….more power to you. I would rather not have chemicals touch my food if it can be avoided it. That is that. To each their own and we all need to do what we feel comfortable with. To make fun of, mock or act as though I am being silly, is unkind and unfair.
As for comments like this at sites like this being the cause of more cavities, that is just untrue. My children drink well water and we don’t drink bottled water, it is expensive and not very “green” or earth friendly. We also don’t use fluoride, never have and never will. Why? They brush twice a day, eat little sugar and take supplements. They don’t need fluoride. They have perfect teeth. Funny how I took fluoride as a kid and brushed but still had cavities. Not sure I can believe in the correlation. To each their own. Cheers.
I believe two things:
1. To each their own. No one can tell you what is right for you.
2. There are millions of little ‘facts’ out there, like bleached carrots, that should serve as PART of the larger truths. If you hear about bleach in carrots, sure…decide to eat or not eat. BUT it should also make you think, if you feel strongly enough about it, and dig around at all the other foods you put in your mouths. I think what’s wrong is that people get an e-mail about carrots, say ‘ew, gross’, stop eating them, and think that’s it. Just because you haven’t read an e-mail about other foods doesn’t mean the risks aren’t out there. So believe what you want, but don’t become ignorant of things like chlorine in tap water, chemicals on your dishes, lead in make-up, etc. I think my fear is people are fine with ‘incoming information’, and that they read an e-mail, take action, then stop. Keep digging people….if it means that much to stop buying baby carrots, then do a little research on other foods and drinks too.
You don’t have to be neurotic to be safe
Thanks carrot companies, for keeping us safe from food born illness. I am happy to have chlorine sanitize my food if it saves me from ecol i or salmonella. This process is awesome! I love soft light, white flour too - so keep up the bleaching there too. I use chlorine to sanitize my laundry and home. I am not going to buy into the hysteria of this post.
Is it hysteria Nadia or simply information from companies on bleach and chlorine? I think it is just information that people need to have to make their own shopping decisions. To sanitize we don’t need chlorine but if you believe we do, okay. The idea behind this post is we can buy local homegrown vegetables that aren’t dipped or we can grow our own too. There are alternatives. Thanks for sharing your point of view and visiting.
I found this because I wanted more information about the carrots. We grow a lot of our own food and buy from farmer’s markets but it’s not always possible here in the north to have fresh veggies all year round. I try to keep up with information but there is so much out there and I can only do so much. I filter our water because I don’t know what’s in there and it scares me. We had well water but it became nitrate tainted. No one was worried and those who were were over-reacting. I don’t think so. I think it’s fair to be worried about what you are putting in your body and what we are doing to the earth. If you don’t like it then don’t worry. Maybe the chemicals will make you live longer - I don’t know. Right now I don’t want them in my body and I am grateful for the awareness even if it’s a little alarmist - we need to be shaken every now and again. As for me - I’m going to buy organic as often as I can.
thanks so much for the information. i just got a great book called “Food Additives: A Shoppers Guide to Whats Safe & Whats Not” by Christina Hoza Farlow, D.C. I highly reccomend it. It is super easy to use and fits in your purse. : ) I was very suprised to find out that some of the ingredients i assume are safe like canola oil, are not in some cases. if anyone else has any good resources on living healthier I would love to hear about them. I just recently started trying to be as dilligent as possible about what I buy, eat, use, throw away, etc.. God Bless!
Oh, also wanted to note that Costco has a lot of organice fruits and veggies frozen and fresh now. Not everything is Organic but what they do have is VERY reasonably priced.
I cannot Believe this!… Chlorine is present in your stomach as HCL, during digestion, Clorine is often used to purify the water you drink,,, And, as if that weren’t enough, the amount of chlorine used on carrots, if, in fact, it is used, is so small per carrot as to be practically nonexistent. Here’s the information, a direct quote.
“A solution of 71 weight percent food grade citric acid and 29% weight percent L-cysteine hydrochloride was diluted with 36° F. tap water to a final concentration of about 1.7 weight percent citric acid and L-cysteine hydrochloride. A test group of the same carrots, also weighing approximately 0.5 pound, was then submerged in the chilled 1.7 weight percent citric acid and L-cysteine hydrochloride solution for about 15 minutes. The test group was then submerged for 30 seconds in a 100 ppm chlorinated water bath, also at about 36° F., bagged in the same perforated film, and placed in refrigerated storage at about 42° F.”
100 PPM is 100 parts per million, or 10 parts per hundred thousand, or one part per ten thousand, or one tenth of a part per thousand. That’s pretty weak bleach, don’t you think?
Why can’t people at least be accurate when they’re making these claims? Why must we panic over a few molecules of chlorine per carrot bite and cheerfully eat organic vegetables that contain microbes sufficient to destroy a small village?
Again, I just Do Not Believe the ignorance and blatant stupidity of some so-called investigators.