The Natural Philosopher ) wibbled on Sunday 13 March
2011 21:51:

harry wrote:
On Mar 13, 5:23 pm, "john morgan" wrote:
It's saying on some websites that the juice from carrots may be of help
with Eye Cataracts.

Argos catalogue has two reasonable priced ones of page 699. One is
19.99 and the other is 29.99.

Would anyone have experience of using these particular juicers and would
recommend one for using with carrots. Since someone said that carrots
are among the more difficult things to juice satifactorarily.

The carrots myth was deliberate disinformation released during WW2.
It was intended to hide from the Krauts the fact that that all their
messages to Uboats were being decoded with the Bombe and Colossus
machines at Bletchley Park.

Er no, it as to hide the fact that 'Cats eyes Cunningham' had a radar
equipped night fighter.

He is alleged to have quipped that he 'ate a lot of carrots'

It derives from the fact that whatever is in carrots, is also found in
eyes.

The lie was that a diet of carrots enabled the Coastal Command air
crews to see in the dark.

Seventy years on, the myth still lives! Heh Heh! To the gullible
anyway.

I thought it was due to the fact that carrots contain beta-carotene, which
is metabolised into vitamin A by the body.

Vitamin A deficiency has night blindness as one of its symptoms. At least
that's what we were taught in O-Level Biology - and Wikipedia seems to
concur:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_A_deficiency


Not that eating extra carrots will give you superman's eyes, but in WWII it
is quite possible some people were short of the correct balance of nutition.

I like the radar story - that could well have a convenient element of truth
too.

Besides, it got my kids eating carrots

--
Tim Watts