The WW2 Carrot Propaganda
Old wive’s tales. You’ve heard of at least one of these when it comes to eating food. “Feed a cold, starve a fever” or “chicken soup cures the cold” or “an apple a day keeps the doctor away!” As a registered nutritionist, I don’t mind these. If it helps reminding people to reach for a nourishing food to feel better, it’s a start! Plus, most of these actually have some degree of truth to them backed with scientific evidence. Maybe just not with as much magic as certain people swear it to be.
This is one that I grew up hearing - “Carrots gives you better night vision!”
Let’s first look at how this could be a true fact -
Carrots are rich in antioxidants including 3 that are key for maintaining healthy eye health:
Beta carotene is what gives carrots the orange hue. This is converted to Vitamin A by the body which is needed to form light sensitive photoreceptor proteins in the eyes. This is why a vitamin A deficiency can lead to night blindness, but is reversible with added dietary vitamin A.
Vitamin C helps with reducing damage caused by free radicals which can lead to cellular damage which can lead to eye diseases
Lutein is found in the yellow hue of carrots, it is helpful in preventing macular degeneration, which is when vision becomes blurry over time as a result of aging.
Now you have the scientific basis, you can see that carrots along with other antioxidant rich colourful veggies are crucial for mentioning healthy eye healthy and reducing your risk of eye diseases. But it doesn’t mean having an excess amount of carrots will reverse vision loss or give you animal like night vision.
So where did this widely belief idea of carrots improving people’s vision come from?
Many historians concluded that it is very likely an unintended consequence of a World War 2 propaganda. During the war, in response to German night bomber planes, England implemented complete blackouts to make it more difficult for the pilots to see the cities and towns. At the same time, the British Royal Air Force had just developed a new radar technology that allowed them to track enemy planes at night and conduct their own reverse attacks. The government wanted to keep this a secret for as long as possible so the British Ministry of Agriculture released a statement urging their citizens to start eating more carrots by crediting their pilots’ success to this superfood. Britain at the time was also going through wartime rationing and because carrots were cheap and plentiful, it was chosen as the perfect “decoy” to hide their military edge. They made so much commotion that this idea actually managed to spread to other countries including the U.S, saying like “A carrot a day keeps the blackout at bay” was even published in the New York Times. It is uncertain whether or not their attempt at tricking the Germans worked. But the benefits of carrots has absolutely become a deeply rooted belief amongst the British and American citizens after years of war time carrot propaganda.
References -
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/are-carrots-good-for-your-eyes#other-benefits
http://yoursightmatters.com/carrots-really-improve-eyesight/
https://healthyeating.sfgate.com/eating-carrots-actually-increase-vision-9821.html
https://coopervision.com/eye-health-and-vision/eye-vitamins-vision
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3693724/
https://www.livescience.com/38861-carrots-eyesight-myth-origins.html
