Skip The Baby Carrots. Cheaper, healthier, and better.
Recently we started buying regular carrots instead of the organic baby variety that we have loved for many years. I must admit the idea wasn’t mine; it was something I became willing to experiment with after reading this wonderful article from Andrea Dickson over at Wise Bread. The article gives a really interesting history of the baby carrots and than shares her experiences. I won’t share too much, because the article is worth the read.
What I will do is relay our experiences with regular carrots. This is what we have noticed :
- Savings. The price is about half the cost of baby carrots.
- Taste. Regular carrots taste better.
- Texture. I actually find the dry raw qualities of the regular carrot more enjoyable.
- Last longer. Instead of getting slimy and gross after only a few days, regular carrots stay dry and crisp for a lot longer. The carrots seems to last even longer if you buy carrots with the leaves still on.
- Not as much work cutting and peeling as I thought. It takes only a minute or two to make a whole batch of crunchy sticks.
- Healthier. More beta carotene. Source
Don’t be scared, give them a try next time you are at the store. You will get more carrot for your money, and better product to boot.
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This is very interesting. Especially where i live in Australia, the baby carrots are more expensive than the larger size carrots. Who would have thought..
What about juicing? I don’t think the regular would taste better than the babies.
Great points. I came to this same conclusion a while back when I remembered how much I loved crunching on a full-sized carrot when I was a child. And then I looked at the price difference! Yeah this is a no-brainer when you stop and think about it. But don’t sacrifice the organic carrots, I think the raw carrots are only 30-50 cents more than their non-organic counterparts.
Here in Scandinavia baby carrots are not that common. Large organic carrots with dirt on them are what we like.
@Smartmove, you are correct. The baby carrots do not taste any better than juicing the regular ones. Plus they are more expensive which makes doesn’t make it cost effective.
It reminds me of the tiny bananas that are too small to be sold as regular bananas. Then they sell them at double the price and call them baby bananas.
go one further and grow your own carrots… they don’t need much space and are ever so easy 🙂
When I started juicing I had trouble finding fresh produce all year round so bought canned baby carrots. Guess what? They were absolutely delicious – so sweet.
However once I got over my naivety and read the label I realized that there was sugar added! Oh well ……
Anyways, I find that in my local market that shoppers in general aren’t willing to pay the extra for organic and you can often find them near the expiry date but reduced and cheaper than non-organic. If you use right away they’re every bit as tasty.
Happy juicing, John