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Lifestyle

Can Eating Carrots Actually Improve Your Eyesight?

This article is written by a student writer from the Spoon University at Bucknell chapter.

I remember sitting at the dinner table as a kid. “Eat your carrots, or you’re going to end up wearing glasses like me,” my mom always nagged me. The correlation between eyesight and eating an orange vegetable never correlated to me but I accepted it as fact, well because my mom said so.

But looking back on my childhood, I began to question the reality of what my mom had told me. I mean, I’m 19-years-old and I’ve worn glasses since I was 9. How does that make sense? I wondered.

Carrots Improve My Eyesight pasture vegetable
Charlotte Hull

Well it turns out, carrots aren’t necessarily correlated with preventing vision loss. Not until World War II were carrots even associated with eyesight. The British Air Force wrote a fabricated story about how a skilled pilot John “Cats’ Eyes” Cunningham attributed his superb night vision to his carrot-rich diet. Soon, everyone was eating carrots.

Just think that the reason we ate carrots so much as kids was because of some WWII propaganda. That’s not going to stop me from convincing myself that this carrot cake milkshake is helping my eyesight. 

Carrots Improve My Eyesight vegetable carrot
Annelise Vought

But we can’t simply dismiss carrots from all its other merits, a lot of which promote vision health.

Vitamin A

Carrots Improve My Eyesight vegetable carrot
Nick Schmidt

Carrots are extremely high in beta-carotene, a pigment which leads to high levels of vitamin A production. Many of the leading causes of blindness are due to vitamin A deficiency. So hey, maybe mom wasn’t so wrong after all. Vitamin A also reduces your risk of getting cataracts.

#SpoonTip: Carrots aren’t the only foods high in daily vitamins, these foods that can replace your daily vitamins too.

Lutein

Carrots Improve My Eyesight vegetable carrot
Photo courtesy of  pixabay.com

Carrots are also rich in lutein, a vital antioxidant. Foods that a rich in lutein are known to increase the amount of pigment in the macula. The macula is the yellow oval area in the center of the retina.  When the macula is low in pigment, optical deformities can occur such as astigmatism or glaucoma.

Falcarinol

Carrots Improve My Eyesight vegetable carrot
Photo courtesy of pixabay.com

Falcarinol is a natural pesticide that is produced by carrots. Carrots are one of the only vegetables to produce this presicide. According to this study, conducted by the University of Newcastle, carrot-eating rats lowered their risk of lung cancer by 1/3. Hmm, maybe I should try making these carrot fries tonight, to prevent cancer…Obviously.

Casey Twomey

Bucknell '19

Wishes every day was Taco Tuesday