Short Stuff: Carrots and Your Eyes

Join Chuck and Josh as they learn that one of the great childhood truths – that carrots help you see better in the dark was totally made up!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm josh, there's
chucking this short stuff. It's the shortest of the stuffs.
I think, I believe I'm right. You ever heard the
uh the old kids song Carrots, carrots good for your heart.
The more you eat, the better your eyes. No, who
wrote that? I did? Just now, Okay, that's fine then

(00:28):
if it was off the cuff. But I mean, man,
if that went through like a focus group or something.
You like carrots? Oh, I love carrots. As a matter
of fact, researching this, I ate two raw carrots while
I was reading. I eat raw carrots all the time,
like with the skins on and everything. Oh. You don't
even do a little peel huh, No, just wash them up.
Sometimes you should watch them, you know, they come out

(00:51):
of the dirt. I know. But so I've read, and
I think we talked about there's this idea that vegetarians
don't get some sort of um like beneficial bacteria because
the vegetables are so well rinsed and washed in the
United States and there's some something in the dirt that

(01:13):
is helpful. But I mean, yeah, I mean when I
wash my potatoes and carrots and stuff, I don't do
like the the brush scrub or anything like that. I
just give them a good sort of hand rense, Right,
So I'm sure I'm getting some some good dirt in there. Yeah,
you want to make it. You want to get it
under your fingernails and then lick it out from under
your fingernails. That's the healthiest way. So we're talking about

(01:37):
carrots though, because the old adage that carrots are good
for your eyes. And here's the deal, and we'll talk
kind of all about this. Carrots are good for your eyes,
but um, they're not like a cure if you have
anything other than a vitamin AID deficiency, which is why
your eyes may be going bad. Right, And even if

(02:00):
you already have like a problem from vitamin A deficiency,
they're not necessarily going to reverse the issue. But from
what I can tell, carrots are a really good preventative
or um Vitamin A deficiency related eye issues. Um. And
we'll talk about how that works in a second. But first, Chuck,

(02:20):
I want to tell you when I was younger, Um,
we used to have a great neighborhood for playing things
like kick the can, And I remember specifically explaining to
some of my friends that I was playing with that
I was able to see them so clearly at night
because I ate a bunch of carrots, like I've always
eaten carrots. And I meant that as sincerely as I've

(02:41):
ever said anything in my life. And I just yesterday
figured out that I was totally full of it and
didn't realize it. And when one of the other boys
shoved you, you said that your dad was going to
sue their family for all the money they had. Yeah.
I don't think I've ever said that, my I thankfully,
I always was like, that's that's lame. Yeah, yeah, you're

(03:05):
you're the only eight year old going, well, that's called
a frivolous lawsuit, my friend to reform now, So yeah,
you might have been Uh, that might have been a
carryover for you from this story from World War Two
in the UK. Apparently the British Royal Air Force had
a story they published about the fighter pilot John Cat's

(03:27):
Eye Cunningham, who they could thank for his diet of carrots,
for the fact that he was so good at night
and these dog fights that he would get into at night,
and so people drank it up. They grew carrots, And
it turns out It was all sort of a false story,
cooked up for propaganda sake to cover up their radar technology. Yeah,

(03:52):
they didn't want everybody to know that they were using radar,
so they said, there's this guy who's eating so many
carrots that he can see German bombers at night. You
know what they really said? What they said, hay, old boy,
what do you think about just dangling you as the
old carrot as it were? Oh? Man, that was that
was good. Yeah. I think we should also specify his

(04:14):
nickname wasn't cats size, it was cat's eyes. He wasn't
like the size of a cat. Mm hmm yeah, c
A T s apostrophe e y e, not c A
T s i z e, because that's what it sounded
like at first. I got you cat size, cat size.

(04:38):
He's the cutest darn little slying pilot. Oh no, boy,
that's good. Um, So that's totally made up. It's British propaganda. Um.
And you don't actually see better in the dark from
eating carrots. They were just covering up radar ues. That's
one of the best things I've ever learned in my

(04:59):
entire life. I love that. In fact, that's just wonderful.
But it does not mean that carrots aren't good for
your eyes. And we're going to describe how carrots are
good for your eyes after a break about that, Chuck,
it sounds great much much as sky should know. Okay, boy,

(05:37):
that was a great first half if you asked me, Chuck. Yeah,
and you know what, I want to applaud you for
not eating baby carrots. Well there I hear. They're bleached.
They're bleached, and they're also I think the story is
it's a very wasteful thing, right the process. Oh, I
don't know, is it. I mean I think so you
can just look at a baby carrot and where does

(05:58):
the rest of the stuff go. I thought that they
were made from carrots that didn't pass mustard to be
sold um normally, and then they just kind of whittled
it down. But yeah, I guess that that would be
a waste because most of the carrot that wouldn't most
of the produce that doesn't get sold is it's just cosmetic.
I think we talked about food waste before like that,
didn't we. Yeah, and you know what, I tried to

(06:19):
buy one of those the other day. The grocer was
laying out lemons and he had one that didn't look good.
He said it to the side, and I said, kind
of have that one and he said no, He said,
but it looks just like a Blincoln because I know
I'm gonna sell it on eBay. Alright, so I'm gonna
take issue with that guy. And we should do a
short stuff on what's the deal with baby carrots once
we figure that out too, all right, for sure, for sure.

(06:40):
But yeah, I don't eat baby carrots because I have
heard the bleach. Although I must admit I've never done
the actual research. It was enough of it. Yeah, that's true.
I like man size stuff, so, uh, Beta carroteen is
sort of the big ingredient that is the pigment, and
not just in carrots, but in a lot of things
like sweet potatoes, a lot of orange things. I think

(07:02):
it'sn't one of the melons rich with beta karantine canna loope.
I've never heard of that one. That's funny, you're kidding, right, yeah, okay,
but it could have been one of those things that
you've never seen written out before, you know, like like fatricious.
I don't even know how to spell that F A

(07:23):
C E T I O U S it looks like
fastidious or something. Yeah, fascetious or something, or what's the
one he used to get wrong all the time? Oh
delete de so. Beta carotene is this pigment. It's in

(07:44):
a lot of orange fruits and veggies, and it is
rich with vitamin A. And we've already discussed vitamin A
is in in the developing world, vitamin A. If you
don't have enough of it, it is a leading cause
of blindness. Um. There are some other conditions that a
lack of vitamin A can cause with the eyes, one
called zero thalamia, where you don't produce tears. You have

(08:09):
a lot of dryness. Obviously, your eyelids can swell. Uh,
and you can get ulcers in your cornea. It sounds awful,
it does, uh. And then also macular degeneration UM, which
is a problem everywhere. It's like one of the main
causes people lose their vision as they age. But from
what I've read, that's not like it's not just a UM,

(08:34):
a natural normal outcome of aging, Like you can prevent
it in. One of the ways that you can prevent
it or stave it off is from eating plenty of
carrots or eating plenty plenty of foods that are rich
in beta carotene, because I don't think we've said it yet.
Beta caroteen is a precursor to vitamin A. We eat
things like that, like carrots that contain beta carotene, and

(08:54):
our bodies go boop boop, poop, poop poop and turn
it into vitamin a and go here you go. Here's
use some of this and your eyes pack it in
the macula and it fortifies it against macular degeneration. That's right.
And we mentioned sweet potatoes in the cantilupe. But also
of course mango. You got your pumpkin, you got your apricot.

(09:18):
Kind of most of those orange colored foods except for oranges. Oranges, yeah,
they don't have beta guarantine. I don't think that is
just stupid. I know, what do you do in orange? Um?
Some milk apparently has it, so a lot of cheeses
have it, egg yolks um have it. Liver has it.
Liver has everything, I think, because it's just everything gets

(09:41):
stuck in the liver, so you're you're ingesting everything. Right then,
I'm not a big liver fan either, although I do
love it. I love a good patty, but like, I
wouldn't eat like just a grilled liver or something like that.
It'd fall through the grates, I think on a grill,
wouldn't it. Yeah, I mean that's that's where I go

(10:02):
south with with any like survival competition. I love those shows,
but I don't know, man. I mean maybe if it
was life and death, I could bring myself to it.
But eating in trails and livers and brains and stuff
just very very tough for me. Not a sweetbread fan,
huh new. And that's a terrible name for that stuff.
It is. There's a you know, there's that footnote in

(10:23):
our book about sweetbreads being like the greatest culinary euphemism
of all time because those things are not. That's that's
just about as great as it comes for that kind
of thing. Because you talk calamus or something, or the
thyroid gland. Yeah, and the pancreas. I think I think
you're referring to our book that you can pre order now, right, Yeah, yeah,

(10:44):
stuff you should know Colon an incomplete compendium of mostly
interesting things which can be pre ordered everywhere in the
world right now. Yeah, I read those footnotes. There are
a lot of fun So where are we are. We
are basically at the point where I think we kind
of wrap this up, chuck, because we've we've talked about
beta caroten being important, We've talked about UM vitamin A,

(11:09):
and then I guess we should also mention lutine loutins
and antioxidant that's also found in carrots, which makes carrots
even even more potent health wise. UM that really kind
of helped them prevent macular degeneration too. Yeah, I think
they increase your pigment density, and the macula is where

(11:30):
that happens. In the macula you always hear about macular degeneration,
but that's the little oval yellow area near the retina. Yes,
and when that goes you can't see so well, so
you want to keep that healthy. So basically, I think
what we're trying to say is go out preorder our
book and then while you do, eat some raw carrots,
but not the baby kind. Yeah, eat raw carrots, and

(11:52):
then if you want more lutine, you can also eat
dark leafy greens and kale and Swiss shard and stuff
like that. And don't forget our book. And since I
said that, choke, I think short stuff is out, don't
you Yes Out Stuff You Should Know is a production
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(12:13):
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