
How Carrots Became the new Junk Food - hnal943
http://www.fastcompany.com/node/1739774/print
======
gwern
> AT COCA-COLA, Dunn was obsessed with per capita consumption. "Per capita was
> my mantra," he says. But as he neared the end of his time there, he began to
> feel conflicted. It was still his job to sell more Coke. But people were
> drinking a lot of Coke. He talked to his father about it. "If you've got a
> per capita of three, four, five" -- 500 Cokes a year -- "that's fine. But
> there are places in the United States where you have per capitas of 1,000. I
> can't get my head around somebody drinking 1,000 Cokes a year," Dunn says.
> "This was before obesity had become as prevalent. But it was pretty clear
> that's where the world was going. And certainly sugar soft drinks had a
> direct role in that."

Reminds me of a David Foster Wallace aside:

> "On the surface of the problem, television is responsible for our rate of
> its consumption only in that it's become so terribly successful at its
> acknowledged job of ensuring prodigious amounts of watching. Its social
> accountability seems sort of like that of designers of military weapons:
> unculpable right up until they get a little too good at their job."

------
JoeAltmaier
I know why baby carrot sales flatlined. Every bag I buy is slimy. Something
changed in the pipeline/process and now they are disgusting.

~~~
noodle
for me, it was more simple. baby carrots are crazy expensive compared to
normal carrots. i decided i was perfectly fine eating normal carrots instead.

~~~
streeter
I stopped buying baby carrots when I found out that they are just big carrots
cut down. They aren't picked early or anything. Thus, a lot of waste is
created to make baby carrots.

~~~
wtn
Shaved carrots.

~~~
GaryOlson
Single, dual, multi-blade or electric? Seriously, do you go for the clean
contoured shave or multifaceted polygonal surfacing? Is a shave effectively
different from peeling?

------
r00fus
My wife won't eat carrots because they make her allergic (cooked ones are
fine)... she only gets these reactions since moving here to the US from
France.

Since this is a duopoly from the same region (Central CA), perhaps the dropoff
in the past few years is due to the carrot quality?

~~~
enjo
Out of curiosity: I have a friend who had the same allergy... she switched to
purely organic carrots and it went away. Does it work the same way with your
wife?

~~~
Splines
I get allergies to them too (plus apples, bananas, strawberries, and a bunch
of other fruit). The weird thing is that I could eat all of these things
probably up until my early 20s (late 1990s), and now all I can do is stare and
salivate.

~~~
electromagnetic
FYI Mars bars help control the salivation.

~~~
Splines
Well, I'm allergic to those too, so it isn't much help ;)

------
api
[http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=xtreme_bulls...](http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=xtreme_bullshit)

~~~
s00pcan
I can't remember the last time Maddox was relevant.

------
mikecarlucci
Missed the best reason carrots are like junk food: they're sweet.

~~~
huherto
But they have a lot of fiber which is supposed to be the antidote for sweet.

~~~
endtime
Fiber slows digestion, which (according to my limited understanding) mitigates
the blood insulin spike which is the main fault of fructose - but I wouldn't
really call that mitigation an "antidote".

~~~
huherto
I remember that assertion from the "bitter truth" videos. But I don't exactly
understand why he says so.

------
jamesgeck0
For the curious, the television ads are on YouTube.

[http://www.youtube.com/user/BunchOfCarrotFarmers#p/c/823F55B...](http://www.youtube.com/user/BunchOfCarrotFarmers#p/c/823F55B5CB6E31CD)

------
Joeboy
Wonder why that story is dated April 1, 2011 (print version only)

~~~
jerf
If you're implying this may be an extended joke, I'm pretty sure it isn't.
I've seen other stories about this in the past couple of months that have
nothing to do with April 1. I'm not in any of the test markets though, so I
can't vouch that I've seen these personally.

~~~
Joeboy
> If you're implying this may be an extended joke

No, just intrigued by the article being apparently from the future.

~~~
billswift
Magazines are almost always released before the cover dates; some just
transferred that practice to the web. Where I think it is really annoying.

~~~
rapind
Only EXTREME magazines do this.

------
RyanMcGreal
> a white-coated staff has been experimenting with a future phase of the
> campaign: flavors.

And that's the point at which baby carrots really do become junk food.

~~~
sorbits
_“most of the goodness is actually in, or just below the skin”_ from
<http://www.carrotmuseum.co.uk/nutrition.html>

Never seen Baby Carrots, but if they are “carved” from regular carrots, it
sounds like they already lost some of their nutritional value.

------
niravshah
Why is April 1st coming early this year (see date of article)

------
mberning
I see 'extreme' commercials for baby carrots all the time on local television.
They can put all the marketing they want behind baby carrots, there is still
one big problem: raw carrots taste like shit. I'd honestly rather go hungry
than eat raw carrots, and no amount of cool marketing is going to change that.

~~~
whakojacko
Really? I love raw carrots and I know I'm not alone.

~~~
smokinn
I love raw carrots as well but JoeAltmaier pinpointed the reason I don't buy
baby carrots anymore: they're slimy.

I have no idea why but a couple of years back the carrots started getting
slimy and it got progressively worse.

Now, instead of eating a bunch of baby carrots as a snack I just take a whole
carrot and cut it into quarters lengthwise and eat that.

~~~
oihujyfgthyjuik
When they were a luxury food the baby carrots were actually 'young' carrots.

Now they are popular they are just sections of whole carrots put through a
press to cut and shape them. They are basically carrot 'french fries' thats
why the end up slimy

