{"id":8833,"date":"2012-02-13T23:50:24","date_gmt":"2012-02-14T07:50:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/?p=8833"},"modified":"2012-12-02T20:19:29","modified_gmt":"2012-12-03T04:19:29","slug":"if-you-eat-an-excessive-amount-of-carrots-your-skin-will-turn-an-orangishyellow-shade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2012\/02\/if-you-eat-an-excessive-amount-of-carrots-your-skin-will-turn-an-orangishyellow-shade\/","title":{"rendered":"If You Eat an Excessive Amount of Carrots, Your Skin Will Turn an Orangish\/Yellow Shade"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Today I found out<\/a> if you eat an excessive amount of carrots, your skin will turn an orangish\/yellow shade.<\/p>\n

Take notes those of you from New Jersey, you don’t need to get a fake tan to turn orange, you can simply eat large amounts of orange plants, such as orange carrots.\u00a0 The resulting condition is known as carotenemia and isn’t as uncommon as you might think.\u00a0 It particularly rears its orangish-yellow head with infants that are often fed copious amounts of mushed carrots and a variety of vegetables that contain high amounts of carotene.\u00a0 Carotene is a pigment and if you consume a lot of it, the carotene levels in your body build up and your skin will turn orangish-yellow.\u00a0 This effect will typically first show up with your nose and\/or palms showing the color first, which is why you occasionally see babies with orange noses.<\/p>\n

Luckily, especially for kids whose parents over feed them carrots and other such carotene packed food, this condition isn’t harmful, other than potentially making the kid look like a future star of Jersey Shore, which I guess could be considered a form of child abuse.\u00a0 But beyond that, all one has to do to make the skin coloration go away is to simply stop consuming large amounts of things with carotene in it.<\/p>\n

While it can cause odd skin coloration, one thing eating large amounts of carrots won’t do is improve your eyesight, at least assuming you’re not malnourished.\u00a0 If you are malnourished, it may improve your vision.\u00a0 Specifically, if you aren’t getting enough Vitamin-A, eating carrots (because of the beta-carotene that your body converts to Vitamin-A as it needs it) can improve your eyesight and night vision. However, the fact is that most people in the developed world get plenty of Vitamin-A because it’s in an awful lot of foods, such as: pretty much all dairy products, eggs, peas, pumpkin, broccoli, cantaloupe, spinach, sweet potatoes, papayas, lettuce, mangoes, cucumbers, peaches, pineapples, tomatoes, yellow corn, and many, many more. Further, because excessive amounts of Vitamin-A won’t improve vision any more than adequate amounts will get your vision at and because Beta-Carotene won’t be turned into Vitamin-A in your body if you’ve already got enough Vitamin-A (which is good because too much Vitamin-A can be toxic), eating carrots won’t usually do anything for your vision at all.<\/p>\n

The myth that carrots can improve your eyesight beyond normal, particularly that carrots can improve night vision, was popularized by British propaganda during WWII.\u00a0 British gunners in WWII were able to locate and shoot down German planes at night due to significant advancements in radar technology during WWII.\u00a0 To help cover up this fact, the British spread about an urban legend that said that they were able to increase the night vision of their pilots by having them consume large amounts of carrots.\u00a0 This propaganda campaign included stories about certain pilots like Lieutenant John “Cat Eyes” Cunningham who they said had exceptional night vision thanks to a habit of eating large amounts of carrots.\u00a0 This lie not only gave birth to an urban legend, but also caused many British people to start planting their own vegetable gardens, including planting and eating a large amount of carrots in order that they’d be able to see better during blackouts.<\/p>\n

Bonus<\/span> Facts:<\/p>\n