Both whole carrots and carrot juice provide healthy carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals. While crunchy whole carrots make a satisfying snack, by choosing juice, you could condense most of the health benefits of several carrots into one easy-to-drink beverage. Processing carrots into juice reduces the amount of complex carbohydrates and increases the simple sugars. For longer-lasting energy, eat whole carrots.
Nutrition in Carrots
Whole carrots provide nearly the same amount of nutrition whether you eat them raw or cooked. Since cooked carrots pack more tightly, 1/2 cup weighs 78 g compared to 64 g for raw chopped carrots. The cooked serving gives you 270 percent of the recommended daily value of vitamin A, while the raw serving contributes 150 percent. Your serving of raw carrots provides 6 percent of the DV of vitamin C, compared to 4 percent for a cooked serving. Other nutrients remain equal, and the energy content also stays the same, at 25 calories. Both servings provide 2 g of dietary fiber and 3 g of sugars.
Nutrients in Juice
Water makes up almost 105 g of the 118 g of canned carrot juice in a 1/2 cup serving. The carrot juice gives you more than twice the amount of Vitamin A and C as in a serving of whole carrots. Juice provides less than half the dietary fiber, and you'll consume nearly twice the calories. Carrots contain more sugar than any other root vegetable except beets, and carrot juices contain higher amounts of simple sugars than do whole carrots. A sweet glass of carrot juice delivers energy in a burst, while the digestible fiber and other complex carbohydrates in whole carrots digest slowly.
Nutritional Pigments
You could find unusual nutritional value in yellow or purple carrots as well as the common red or orange supermarket variety. Red carrots contain 5,302 mcg of beta-carotene per 1/2 cup, plus 1 mcg of lycopene. These antioxidants could reduce cancer risks over time. Yellow and purple carrots from strains cultivated in the Middle East over 1,000 years ago offer other powerful nutrients. Pigments called xanthophylls in yellow carrots contribute to eye health, and lutein protects your eyes from macular degeneration. Purple carrots contain the same antioxidants found in raspberries and blueberries, but at levels up to 28 times greater than in orange carrots, according to Professor Lindsay Brown of the University of South Queensland.
Misconceptions
Chronic overconsumption of vitamin A as retinol could cause serious health problems, but eating carrots won't cause you to overdose on this important vitamin. Carrots contain no retinol, but do contain large amounts of the beta-carotene your body uses to make retinol. Beta-carotene converts to retinol only if needed. If you consume an unusually high amount of whole carrots or carrot juice, you do run the risk of an unusual skin condition called carotemia. Your body stores extra carotene, the pigment in red and orange carrots, in body fat. Carrot-colored fat causes no harm and could help protect you from harmful ultraviolet light, but temporarily tints your skin slightly yellow or orange.
References
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Vegetable of the Month -- Carrot
- USDA National Nutrient Database: Search Term -- Carrot Juice
- MedlinePlus; Vitamin A; Alison Evert; February 8, 2011
- USDA Agricultural Research Service; Carrots with Character; Erin K. Peabody; November 2004
- University of South Queensland; Move Over Spinach -- Purple Carrots Are the New Supervegetable; Madeleine Tiller; August 2010
- Cornell Center for Materials Research; Ask a Scientist -- You May Look Like What You Eat; Tom Brenna; July 24, 2003
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