{"id":51668,"date":"2012-10-13T14:29:32","date_gmt":"2012-10-13T19:29:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=51668"},"modified":"2017-09-17T15:42:16","modified_gmt":"2017-09-17T20:42:16","slug":"where-did-baby-carrots-come-from","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2012\/10\/13\/where-did-baby-carrots-come-from\/","title":{"rendered":"Where Did Baby Carrots Come From?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, first, they’re not baby<\/em> carrots. \u00a0The two-inch carrots marketed as juveniles are actually pieces of regular sized carrots that are cut off and shaved into a “baby carrot” shape. \u00a0So, there’s no reason to expect the babies to be fresher, more tender, or sweeter.\u00a0(Sorry, baby carrot lovers.)<\/p>\n

But revealing how baby carrots are made is only Part I of the answer to the question of where they come from. \u00a0Who had the idea<\/em> to make “baby carrots” and for what reason?<\/p>\n

It turns out the idea came from a grower named\u00a0Mike Yurosek. \u00a0According to Douglas McGray at Fast Company<\/a>, it was grocery stores that pushed Yurosek to invent the baby carrot. \u00a0McGray writes:<\/p>\n

…Yurosek had become frustrated with all the waste in the carrot business. Supermarkets expected carrots to be a particular size, shape, and color. Anything else had to be sold for juice or processing or animal feed, or just thrown away. Yurosek wondered what would happen if he peeled the skin off the gnarly carrots, cut them into pieces, and sold them in bags.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He whipped up two prototypes: the baby carrot with which we’re all familiar and “bunny balls,” 1-inch round carrot bites. \u00a0Somehow the latter didn’t catch on. \u00a0The rest is history.<\/p>\n

Thanks to Annie C. for sending in the link!<\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, first, they’re not baby carrots. \u00a0The two-inch carrots marketed as juveniles are actually pieces of regular sized carrots that are cut off and shaved into a “baby carrot” shape. \u00a0So, there’s no reason to expect the babies to be fresher, more tender, or sweeter.\u00a0(Sorry, baby carrot lovers.) But revealing how baby carrots are made […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[98,2124,23703,8118],"class_list":["post-51668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-capitalism","tag-foodagriculture","tag-marketing","tag-organizationsinstitutions"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51668"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71580,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51668\/revisions\/71580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}