How did carrots become orange?

By A.L.

CARROTS used to be white. They were grown for their leaves and seeds, much as their distant relatives, parsley and coriander, still are. The chemical compounds that give carrots their vivid colour, carotenoids, are usually used by plants that grow above ground to assist in the process of photosynthesis. But carrots live underground. Subterranean cousins, such as the parsnip and the turnip are both mainly white. How then did the carrot bring a bit of colour to the dinner table?

Carrots originated in modern-day Iran and Afghanistan. They contain around 32,000 genes (more than humans), of which two recessive ones contribute to a build-up of carotenoids, such as alpha- and beta-carotene. Scientists believe early farmers grew colourful carrots unintentionally, and then continued the practice more purposefully in order to differentiate them from wild ones. Around 1,100 years ago purple and then yellow varieties emerged, followed another 600 years later, thanks to further selective breeding, by the modern orange form, which has lots of beta carotene.

There is a theory that orange carrots were promoted by the Dutch, who bred them in honour of William of Orange, the leader of a 16th-century revolt against the Spanish Habsburg monarchy that ruled over a swathe of north-western Europe. Whatever the truth of that particular idea, the orange carrot did eventually become associated with the House of Orange. According to Simon Schama, a historian, the conspicuous display of orange carrots at market was at one time deemed to be a provocative gesture of support for an exiled descendent of William, by the movement that drove out the monarch during the 18th century. But this contempt for orange carrots failed to inspire a consumer revolution: almost all modern European carrots descend from a variety originally grown in the Dutch town of Hoorn.

The triumph of orange carrots over other varieties ended up being fortuitous. The orange carrot is the most nutritious, with a high amount of Vitamin A, which contributes to the health of the eye. That spurred another myth, popularised by the British during the second world war, that eating carrots gives night-vision. (The story was intended to keep the Royal Air Force’s development of radar technology hidden from the Germans, who were made to believe that carrot consumption was behind the accuracy of British pilots.) The modern preference for orange carrots has led to the breeding of varieties with ever more vivid shades; today’s carrots have 50% more carotene than those of 1970. Food for thought.