Don't chop those carrots!

Chopping carrots was always a bit of a chore, but I never knew there were drawbacks to both health and taste. BBC News has released this story Cancer boost from whole carrots and the findings are

Scientists found "boiled before cut" carrots contained 25% more of the anti-cancer compound falcarinol than those chopped up first.

Experiments on rats fed falcarinol have shown they develop fewer tumours.

The Newcastle University study will be presented at NutrEvent, a conference on nutrition and health, to be held in France.

Lead researcher Dr Kirsten Brandt, from Newcastle University's School of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development, said: "Chopping up your carrots increases the surface area so more of the nutrients leach out into the water while they are cooked.

"By keeping them whole and chopping them up afterwards you are locking in nutrients and the taste, so the carrot is better for you all round."

The Newcastle scientist, along with colleagues at the University of Denmark, discovered the health benefits of falcarinol in carrots four years ago.

Lead researcher Dr Kirsten Brandt, from Newcastle University's School of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development, said: "Chopping up your carrots increases the surface area so more of the nutrients leach out into the water while they are cooked.

Twenty five percent is a pretty significant difference especially considering a reduction in tumors by a third for rats. I'm not sure what the comparison for humans is and what exactly type of cancer it would affect but so far this is only one study and hopefully there will be more to come

From a pure culinary perspective, I think just as many restaurants will find this interesting:

Dr Brandt added that in blind taste studies the whole carrots also tasted much better.

Eight of ten people favoured the whole vegetables over those that were pre-chopped.

This is because the naturally occurring sugars which are responsible for giving the carrot its distinctively sweet flavour were also found in higher concentrations in the carrot that had been cooked whole.

Huh.