Carrots are extremely tasty vegetables that are consumed with pleasure by both young and old, both raw and baked, boiled, stewed or in the form of a carrot puree. Carrots have an excellent nutritional, taste, dietary and even healing properties, which were discovered by the ancient Greeks.
Hippocrates prescribed carrots as a natural painkiller and anti-inflammatory, as well as a remedy for coughs, night blindness and bleeding.
But what makes carrots so unique? These orange vegetables contain invert sugar, pectin and lecithin. But the main advantage of carrots are vitamins - mainly carotene (provitamin A), vitamins B1, B2, PP and C.
In the carrots, you will also find many enzymes, essential oils, terpenes, minerals - potassium, sodium, magnesium, phosphorus, iodine, as well as the trace elements manganese and copper. However, they are richest in carotene, which gives them this deep red-orange color.
Carrots are believed to have been first grown by the ancient inhabitants of Central Asia about 5,000 years ago. At the time, they were white, pink, yellow, purple and black, but not orange. Orange carrots were cultivated in the 16th century by Dutch gardeners.
Today, carrots have a wide culinary application. They are a frequent guest at our table in the form of carrot salads. But don't forget to try some recipes for carrot jam or carrot cakes, as well as the especially popular in Portugal - carrot marmalade.
