Carrot

Carrot called Daucus Carota in Latin is a root vegetable. Believe it or not, although the carrot is usually found in an orange color, there are also purple, red, white, and yellow varieties. When the carrot is still fresh, it has a crispy texture. The suitable part to be eaten of carrot is a taproot. They have been planted for their greatly enlarged and more palatable and less woody-textured edible taproot. However, they are still the same species.

Carrots are a popular vegetable

The carrot grows leaves in the spring and summer. The flowering stem can grows to about 1 meter tall, with an umbel of white flowers that will produce a fruit called a mericarp by botanists.

Carrots can be eaten in many of ways either as raw or cooked. There are about 3% of beta-carotene in raw carrots is released during digestion which can be improved to 39% by cooking, pulping, and by adding some cooking oil. They may be served as baby or pet food by chopping and boiling, either fried or steamed, and add on in soups or stews. One of well known dish from carrot is carrots julienne. While grated carrots are used in cakes as well as puddings. It is actually an old English dish which originated in the early 1800s. The greens are rarely eaten by humans but it is edible as a leaf vegetable. Carrots are one of the primary vegetables dishes which are mixed together with onion and celery to make various broths.

In India, carrots are used as salads or as vegetables that added to spicy rice or daal dishes. The most popular dish of carrot dessert in north India is the Gaajar Kaa Halwaa. The dessert is using carrots minced and then cooked in milk until the whole thing is becoming solid. Then add nuts and butter. In western parts of India, the salads are usually containing grated carrots with a seasoning of mustard seeds and green chilies popped in hot oil.

White coloured carrots

The north Indian carrot is pink-red in color just like plum or raspberry or deep red apple while most other carrot in other part of the world are from orange to yellow in color, comparable to Halloween pumpkins. The variety of carrot in north India is rare when compare to Central Asia and other nearby regions, and is now growing in larger cosmopolitan cities in South India.

Baby carrots or mini-carrots have been a popular as a ready to eat snack food available in many supermarkets ever since the late 1980s. Carrot juice is also widely marketed as one of the healthy drink. It can be blended with carrots alone or blended with fruits and other vegetables.

It is believed to that carrot is considered as useful companion plant. There is evidence that growing carrots beside tomatoes can increase tomato production while its flower attracts predatory wasps that kill many garden pests.