How Baby Carrots Pushed Me Over the Edge

I always thought I was doing good, trying to stick to the veggie trays at parties, stocking up on plenty of baby carrots.  You know, the kind you find pre-peeled at the grocery store in bags.  Before I began this Real Food journey, I stumbled upon some information on the internet that said baby carrots are soaked in Chlorine "to bring out the bright orange color"... and that was when I decided it was time to take control of my food.



So Chlorine? Really?  Do we really need our carrots to be that bright?  I don't!  I don't even know if it is really bad for you, but the thought of it really disturbs me.  I wanted to verify the story, as it also included information about the "white film" that develops on the carrots after they've been sitting for a while.   I headed to Snopes.com to find out if there was some truth to the rumor:

"As an antimicrobial treatment to minimize or reduce the contamination of the finished product, cocktail carrots can be treated with chlorine. Those that are will be subsequently rinsed with potable water to remove the excess chlorine before being packaged."

It turns out to be a good thing to a degree, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency claims that this is an accepted amount of Chlorine.  I also find that it isn't just baby carrots, but any "ready to eat" veggies that have been cut and bagged could have had the same "sanitizing" process.  The "white film" proved to be incorrect, as it is just the carrot drying out.  There were other parts of the story about what carrots are used, but I hadn't read that in my original finding, not really a concern.

I swallow my pride and accept that this story was not as bad as it initially appeared thanks to someone spreading incorrect information.  I am however really grateful that I read that and didn't verify this until after I started my goal of Real Food!  Without that push, I would have stuck with the processed foods and lived in that "Ignorance is Bliss" frame of mind.

I now peel my own carrots, chop them up, put them in a bowl of cold water and keep them covered in the fridge, so they are just as convenient to eat as the bag that previously lived in my fridge.  I will no longer eat carrots that swim in pools.