Nov 24th, 2018: Black Carrot

[xoxoxoBruce]

Back at the beginning of WW II, the Big One, the Brits trying to hide the fact they had rudimentary radar started the rumor that
spotters could detect incoming Luftwaffe because eating carrots gave them super vision.
They kept up this bullshit throughout the war but didn’t know there was some truth to it, carrots are good for the eyes.

Some time about 1,100 years ago farmers living in what is now Afghanistan took advantage of a mutation in the genes of their white/purple carrots. In the process of domesticating the white, wild carrot, they discovered a yellow variant. Six hundred years later, in Europe, cultivation took another turn, and carrots deepened in hue from yellow to dark orange. The orange carrot probably existed perhaps as early as the 6th century, and it is likely that it began as a mutation of the Asian purple carrot and was cultivated, from yellow varieties into the modern edible plant in the 15th century in the Netherlands. Recent genetic research has proved that orange carrots are derived from yellow varieties.

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