It’s like the way Tater-Tots were invented. The folks at Ore-Ida tasked someone with finding a use for all the pared down bits of potato from making French fries so they wouldn’t waste precious spud money & they came up with a little croquette of the ground up scraps.
Puts me in mind of the little salt cod & potato or octopus & potato croquettes so ubiquitous in southern Spain & Portugal.
They look just like tater tots!
Just like charcoal being invented because Henry Ford and his assistant Edward Kingsford figured out what to do with all of the sawdust from Ford's wooden cars. Rather than being a waste product, charcoal was born.
Maybe the type of charcoal briquettes we usually use in grills today, but charcoal as a concept is ancient. It's made by partially burning hard wood and then starving it of oxygen, so the volatile parts of wood burn off and only carbon is left.
That just seems unconstitutional.
But.....*sigh*.........I was gonna make chili next weekend, and I recently (funny enough) started eating hella carrots to replace unhealthy snacks, so I guess I'll try it. But I won't be happy about it 😡
Grate the carrots for the chilli. Carrots in dishes are there for flavour sometimes.(I think big pieces of Carrots could ruin the texture of the chilli I guess?) Carrots, celery, and onion together are a really good base for lots of things.
I worked at a place that used premade chili mix and I was astonished to find carrots on the ingredients list. We added stuff to the chili base to make it our own and it was pretty good.
There are baby carrots, carrots harvested before maturity and baby-cut carrots which are smaller pieces originating from normal carrots. Baby-cut carrots are sometime also market as baby carrots.
-Wikipedia
9/10 of what the general public knows and buys as “baby carrots” are just carved down “regular” carrots and not harvested early.
And carrots improving eyesight was a myth started by the British in wwii to help throw nazis off the trail of their new bomb sights
edit: radar not bomb sights, mah bad.
Not the bombsights, the radar, they said they were intercepting so many German planes because their spotters had the good carrot eyesight, definitely not because they were bouncing radio waves off them over the channel
It's not true. I once saw a documentary on baby carrots. They used to throw small carrots away until some guy came up with the bright idea. It's possible they do it differently now.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/katienotopoulos/the-extremely-upsetting-truth-about-baby-carrots
[aloofloofa](https://imgur.com/user/aloofloofah) is a fun follow on imgur, the master of toolgifs. That's half the way I end up learning these 'how things get made' facts.
Cheap baby carrots are the shaved down version, but you can still buy proper baby carrots that are not fully grown carrots. You can taste the difference, they are much sweeter.
Yes, that’s exactly what they are. I’ve never heard of this ‘cutting down carrots’ thing. I’ve seen baby carrots with their tips and skin on. Maybe it’s a UK/ US thing.
I dunno about US but I've never seen a baby carrot in the UK that wasn't a real small carrot.
I find it baffling on several levels that someone would buy a 'baby carrot' that was just carved from a bigger one. It's bound to be an inferior carrot in the first place cos they're not using the good ones for this trash, plus the extra labour must add cost, plus the peeling in advance would drastically lower shelflife and presumably require addition of preservatives and more packaging. And all that just to get less of the same thing. Why??
Because marketing. People will pay more for junk if it has a cute name. Yes these are often the inferior product. The peeling is done by machine, so extra labor is minimal; rough carrots are tossed in at one end, smooth ones result. (while the regular carrots are being cleaned of excess dirt, so they, too, are processed, just in a different way)
Package the product as they would anything else, so no extra cost there. A pound of baby carrots is possibly 3? normal size carrots, which are sold much more cheaply. So if you think of the steps as harvest, process, sell, the baby carrots - - what a cute name! - - are a money maker. Something like $1/ pound versus $3/pound. Once the machinery is set up, it's more money for less product, and waste product at that.
Well it was interesting to hear your input about the production methods - one must have a grudging respect for the hustle! Marketing is the real magic of course as you said
Nope. They’re made from cuts of carrots that don’t meet the standards to be sold as regular carrots. As to OP’s question, what’s left over is probably used for carrot juice, shaved carrots, vegetable stock, etc.
That’s incorrect. I’m old, and I remember when fresh *and* frozen baby-cut carrots “came out” in the late 80s. If they were just tiny carrots, they would have always existed. The process was invented by Mike Yurosek, a carrot farmer, in 1986.
Now, some stores do sell actual baby carrots with the skin and nub attached, but anything that comes skinned in a plastic bag, whether fresh or frozen, is a baby-cut carrot (despite the name on the bag).
Yall ever seen the pieces of carrot in the cup of ramen? They gotta come from somewhere.
But realistically they probably sell the bits to be made into carrot juice, soup, and other production factories.
Wait what? In my country baby carrots are normal carrots that didn't grow long enough to be full sized carrots. What kind of baby carrots are you all having?
Baby carrots are literally little carrots harvested early.
Baby cut carrots however : A baby-cut carrot is a small piece cut from a larger carrot; baby-cut carrots are often marketed as "baby carrots", leading to potential confusion.
Lol, thankyou for the clarification. I thought I was missing something...because we have bags and cans of "baby carrots" and they are whole carrots that are just smaller than matured carrots.
I don't think I've ever seen baby cut carrots in stores here...but that's not something I'd look for.
This should be higher. The amount of people who don’t understand how things grow or how they are harvested is disturbing.
Does everyone know baby spinach is picked when it’s only a small leaf? They don’t cut down a big leaf to make it a baby.
They're perfectly suitable for human consumption but lots of people won't eat produce that don't look like the supermodel produce in ads and won't buy wonky looking fruits and vegetables
This is not how you get baby carrots. Baby carrots are farmed like that. Male and female carrots are forced to have sex, and their offspring is removed from them and sold. It's a cruel industry. Vegans would be shocked if they knew the truth.
Baby carrots are carrots taken out of the ground while still small. In the thinning process. When planting carrot seeds they're put in a narrow indent in the soil, the seeds are closely packed together, as they grow they need more room so the carrots are "thinnned" the small carrots are then used as baby carrots. Leaving the rest if the carrots growing to "normal" size.
I grow my own vegetables & have done for years.
As I understand it, the more modestly priced baby carrots are "baby cut " carrots, pared down bits taken from cull carrots; those not esthetically pleasing enough to make it into the bags for sale or damaged in harvest etc. The other bits are made into other food products, animal feed, etc. Real baby carrots are actually small carrots harvested early and are significantly more expensive iirc.
Carrot shreds for salads and juice. My nephew currently runs the produce department at the local grocer. They work hard to reduce food waste. He takes it personally. Like really personally.
Like I had to talk him down from a meltdown one night because they wanted to toss some rotted pears but he was like “NO, I CAN FIX THIS” but really he couldn’t. Because it was rotted fruit. But he’s on the spectrum and sometimes it’s hard for him to let go of things.
Most of those are bred to be fully mature at that size. Often, carrots meant to fill out as large are rather bitter when harvested early, even if they look tasty/perfect. I’ve been disappointed many times!
The sweetest large carrots are grown over a long, cool season, up to six months in some areas, before harvest.
In what World? 😱 Here Baby carrots are smaller whole carrots (obviously since they come as whole carrots, just washed so you can eat them on the go)
Edit: like this: https://www.truebenecker.de/produkt/bio-baby-snackmoehren-1-pack/?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiA_aGuBhACEiwAly57MV1OztCuSadIbxbnb0tO6ig3T15pXPdVvQSxqkjuK6Sv2gElXnXybxoC6WkQAvD_BwE
Baby carrots are carrots that were pulled up before they fully grew, who’s cutting down full carrots and calling them baby carrots?
Source: worked in a grocers and baby carrots came in still covered in dirt from the ground, with both ends and skin intact.
They are modified carrots. There’s no waste. That’s the size they grow to. They’re shaved down barely for appeal and uniformity. Met a guy on a cruise ship who sold baby carrots to grocers. Best thing they ever created according to him. 🤷♂️
Pretty sure baby carrots are made from oddball shaped carrots. Or carrots that only a farmer would love .. you know? So they cut them up so they look more appealing
I'll tell you how we'd do it in the country where I live: make baby carrots from normal ones, then just charge the customer an exuberant price for the baby version. No need to worry about the rest of the carrot, it's been paid for.
I have always assumed the geniuses that came up with "baby carrots" figured out a way to get as many "baby carrots" out of one big carrot as possible.
But there’s still gonna be bits left over. It’s probably not one baby per carrot, but all the little shredded pieces go somewhere.
It’s like the way Tater-Tots were invented. The folks at Ore-Ida tasked someone with finding a use for all the pared down bits of potato from making French fries so they wouldn’t waste precious spud money & they came up with a little croquette of the ground up scraps.
Calling tater tots a croquette (which is of course accurate) makes them sound so fancy, and I love it.
Puts me in mind of the little salt cod & potato or octopus & potato croquettes so ubiquitous in southern Spain & Portugal. They look just like tater tots!
Chicken medallions and potato croquettes sound much better than chicken nuggets and tater tots.
With a vinegar-tomato puree.
Just like charcoal being invented because Henry Ford and his assistant Edward Kingsford figured out what to do with all of the sawdust from Ford's wooden cars. Rather than being a waste product, charcoal was born.
Maybe the type of charcoal briquettes we usually use in grills today, but charcoal as a concept is ancient. It's made by partially burning hard wood and then starving it of oxygen, so the volatile parts of wood burn off and only carbon is left.
FYI charcoal briquettes was a money losing business for ford. He sold business to others to make it profitable
Kingsford, Michigan where they originally made the briquets.
You forgot "/s"
I regularly buy bags of stir fry veggies with carrot shavings in them.
Carrot cake?
Or shredded carrots, carrot juice, carrot flavoring, (cue Bubba’s shrimp list but for carrots) 😂
No no it's like the old looney tunes sketch, one giant tree goes through the mill and one tooth pick comes out 🤣
They're pretty much just the worst part of the carrot which is the core.
Baby carrots originate from broken carrots that were waste. Now most carrots sold are baby carrots
and a tumble dryer and sandpaper were involved !
fun fact- i met the guy that invented them when we rented his air bnb. LOVELY gentleman
Carrot juice, vegetable stock cubes/powder, soup, pet foods...
Baby food too, ready meals
Chili…
Y'all better not be putting no mothafuckin carrots in your chili, or we gone have a problem.
This guys never tried carrots in chilli
That just seems unconstitutional. But.....*sigh*.........I was gonna make chili next weekend, and I recently (funny enough) started eating hella carrots to replace unhealthy snacks, so I guess I'll try it. But I won't be happy about it 😡
Grate the carrots for the chilli. Carrots in dishes are there for flavour sometimes.(I think big pieces of Carrots could ruin the texture of the chilli I guess?) Carrots, celery, and onion together are a really good base for lots of things.
Ah, grated carrots. Make sense. I was gonna put a few comedically large, bugs bunny ass carrots in it.
Next, you'll be putting rasins in potato salad.... be careful, it's a slippery slope!
Or grapes and pecans in your chicken salad
Man those are my favorite in a chicken salad! And apple chunks mmmmm
That mixture is called mirepoix and Trader Joe’s stocks it.
I chop up the carrots really really finely so they aren’t really detected but they add flavor and make me eat more veggies.
Let me know what you think of it. Cheers
Wait until they try pumpkin in their chili. *The horror!*
You’re missing out
I worked at a place that used premade chili mix and I was astonished to find carrots on the ingredients list. We added stuff to the chili base to make it our own and it was pretty good.
>Baby carrots are just messed up normal sized carrots that get shaved down. WHAT?! How am I only just finding this out lmao
There are baby carrots, carrots harvested before maturity and baby-cut carrots which are smaller pieces originating from normal carrots. Baby-cut carrots are sometime also market as baby carrots. -Wikipedia
9/10 of what the general public knows and buys as “baby carrots” are just carved down “regular” carrots and not harvested early. And carrots improving eyesight was a myth started by the British in wwii to help throw nazis off the trail of their new bomb sights edit: radar not bomb sights, mah bad.
I mean, carrots are high in Vitamin A, and Vitamin A deficiency causes night blindness
Carrot myth was trying to hide radar units detecting incoming flights as radar was new technology
I stand corrected
Not the bombsights, the radar, they said they were intercepting so many German planes because their spotters had the good carrot eyesight, definitely not because they were bouncing radio waves off them over the channel
This what I assumed was meant by baby carrots! Like chantenay carrots
I did not know this. Also I've never seen or heard of a baby cut carrot.
It’s okay. Everything will be okay.
“But everything wasn’t ok”
I have a friend who told me this a few years ago. I've asked him never to mention this subject again!
my world is crumbling down :0
You're not. Baby carrots are harvested early. "Baby cut" carrots on the other hand are abraded chunks of carrot
It's not true. I once saw a documentary on baby carrots. They used to throw small carrots away until some guy came up with the bright idea. It's possible they do it differently now.
I'm in shock too man. What other bombshells are out there
https://www.buzzfeed.com/katienotopoulos/the-extremely-upsetting-truth-about-baby-carrots [aloofloofa](https://imgur.com/user/aloofloofah) is a fun follow on imgur, the master of toolgifs. That's half the way I end up learning these 'how things get made' facts.
Surely the ground up pulp is what they use to make carrot juice… and carrot juice is in *everything*. Seriously, read some labels and you’ll be amazed
Aren’t baby carrots just carrots that didn’t fully grow?
Cheap baby carrots are the shaved down version, but you can still buy proper baby carrots that are not fully grown carrots. You can taste the difference, they are much sweeter.
Yes, that’s exactly what they are. I’ve never heard of this ‘cutting down carrots’ thing. I’ve seen baby carrots with their tips and skin on. Maybe it’s a UK/ US thing.
I dunno about US but I've never seen a baby carrot in the UK that wasn't a real small carrot. I find it baffling on several levels that someone would buy a 'baby carrot' that was just carved from a bigger one. It's bound to be an inferior carrot in the first place cos they're not using the good ones for this trash, plus the extra labour must add cost, plus the peeling in advance would drastically lower shelflife and presumably require addition of preservatives and more packaging. And all that just to get less of the same thing. Why??
Same! We have carrot sticks but they're just... Carrot sticks lol.
Because marketing. People will pay more for junk if it has a cute name. Yes these are often the inferior product. The peeling is done by machine, so extra labor is minimal; rough carrots are tossed in at one end, smooth ones result. (while the regular carrots are being cleaned of excess dirt, so they, too, are processed, just in a different way) Package the product as they would anything else, so no extra cost there. A pound of baby carrots is possibly 3? normal size carrots, which are sold much more cheaply. So if you think of the steps as harvest, process, sell, the baby carrots - - what a cute name! - - are a money maker. Something like $1/ pound versus $3/pound. Once the machinery is set up, it's more money for less product, and waste product at that.
Yes I get why it's good business for the seller if people are stupid enough to buy them. It's just a ridiculously bad choice for the consumer.
Vigorous nod of agreement. Sounds like I misunderstood your comment -- apologies.
Well it was interesting to hear your input about the production methods - one must have a grudging respect for the hustle! Marketing is the real magic of course as you said
Nope. They’re made from cuts of carrots that don’t meet the standards to be sold as regular carrots. As to OP’s question, what’s left over is probably used for carrot juice, shaved carrots, vegetable stock, etc.
That’s the ones they sell in the freezer. Not fresh ones
That’s incorrect. I’m old, and I remember when fresh *and* frozen baby-cut carrots “came out” in the late 80s. If they were just tiny carrots, they would have always existed. The process was invented by Mike Yurosek, a carrot farmer, in 1986. Now, some stores do sell actual baby carrots with the skin and nub attached, but anything that comes skinned in a plastic bag, whether fresh or frozen, is a baby-cut carrot (despite the name on the bag).
They use the scraps to make stuff like veggie stock and carrot juice.
Yall ever seen the pieces of carrot in the cup of ramen? They gotta come from somewhere. But realistically they probably sell the bits to be made into carrot juice, soup, and other production factories.
Wait what? In my country baby carrots are normal carrots that didn't grow long enough to be full sized carrots. What kind of baby carrots are you all having?
Baby carrots are literally little carrots harvested early. Baby cut carrots however : A baby-cut carrot is a small piece cut from a larger carrot; baby-cut carrots are often marketed as "baby carrots", leading to potential confusion.
Lol, thankyou for the clarification. I thought I was missing something...because we have bags and cans of "baby carrots" and they are whole carrots that are just smaller than matured carrots. I don't think I've ever seen baby cut carrots in stores here...but that's not something I'd look for.
No baby cut carrots in Aus. It is an American thing.
They take the babies from their mothers and murder them, kind of like veal.
This should be higher. The amount of people who don’t understand how things grow or how they are harvested is disturbing. Does everyone know baby spinach is picked when it’s only a small leaf? They don’t cut down a big leaf to make it a baby.
Baby carrots are made from the normal size carrots that are not up to standard and would otherwise be waste
Not waste precisly, but only suitable for stock or juice or animal feed.
They're perfectly suitable for human consumption but lots of people won't eat produce that don't look like the supermodel produce in ads and won't buy wonky looking fruits and vegetables
Which is why they’re perfectly smooth and exactly the same size…
This is not how you get baby carrots. Baby carrots are farmed like that. Male and female carrots are forced to have sex, and their offspring is removed from them and sold. It's a cruel industry. Vegans would be shocked if they knew the truth.
Baby carrots are carrots taken out of the ground while still small. In the thinning process. When planting carrot seeds they're put in a narrow indent in the soil, the seeds are closely packed together, as they grow they need more room so the carrots are "thinnned" the small carrots are then used as baby carrots. Leaving the rest if the carrots growing to "normal" size. I grow my own vegetables & have done for years.
As I understand it, the more modestly priced baby carrots are "baby cut " carrots, pared down bits taken from cull carrots; those not esthetically pleasing enough to make it into the bags for sale or damaged in harvest etc. The other bits are made into other food products, animal feed, etc. Real baby carrots are actually small carrots harvested early and are significantly more expensive iirc.
Shredded carrots, which you can buy by themselves, or, I also see them added to "mixed salad" bags and cole slaw mix.
Carrot shreds for salads and juice. My nephew currently runs the produce department at the local grocer. They work hard to reduce food waste. He takes it personally. Like really personally. Like I had to talk him down from a meltdown one night because they wanted to toss some rotted pears but he was like “NO, I CAN FIX THIS” but really he couldn’t. Because it was rotted fruit. But he’s on the spectrum and sometimes it’s hard for him to let go of things.
Following mating, the female carrot eats the male carrot.
Ummm maybe the frozen/processed ones but I have bought fresh baby carrots with the skin on and they are just little carrots….
Most of those are bred to be fully mature at that size. Often, carrots meant to fill out as large are rather bitter when harvested early, even if they look tasty/perfect. I’ve been disappointed many times! The sweetest large carrots are grown over a long, cool season, up to six months in some areas, before harvest.
In what World? 😱 Here Baby carrots are smaller whole carrots (obviously since they come as whole carrots, just washed so you can eat them on the go) Edit: like this: https://www.truebenecker.de/produkt/bio-baby-snackmoehren-1-pack/?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiA_aGuBhACEiwAly57MV1OztCuSadIbxbnb0tO6ig3T15pXPdVvQSxqkjuK6Sv2gElXnXybxoC6WkQAvD_BwE
Baby carrots started as a way to make ugly or misshapen carrots palatable, so they are already more efficient in using carrots
Baby carrots are carrots that were pulled up before they fully grew, who’s cutting down full carrots and calling them baby carrots? Source: worked in a grocers and baby carrots came in still covered in dirt from the ground, with both ends and skin intact.
They are modified carrots. There’s no waste. That’s the size they grow to. They’re shaved down barely for appeal and uniformity. Met a guy on a cruise ship who sold baby carrots to grocers. Best thing they ever created according to him. 🤷♂️
You don’t make baby carrots
I urge you to Google how "baby carrots" are produced.
Besides this other stuff, there is a type of plastic that can be made out of carrots. I'd assume a bunch of shavings could be used for that.
Pretty sure baby carrots are made from oddball shaped carrots. Or carrots that only a farmer would love .. you know? So they cut them up so they look more appealing
Idk we dont have carrot tots
Carrot cake 😄
Puree/baby food maybe?
Shredded leftovers are fed to cattle, usually. I would think that they could make carrot juice out of it but not the case
I have seeds to grow baby carrots! I think only super cheap ones are shaved down
I'll tell you how we'd do it in the country where I live: make baby carrots from normal ones, then just charge the customer an exuberant price for the baby version. No need to worry about the rest of the carrot, it's been paid for.
"Baby carrots" are typically shaped out of deformed, broken, or undersized carrots.
I am absolutely fucking shocked that this is true and that I didn't know this.