Food Myth Debunked: Do Carrots Really Give You A Better Eyesight?

You probably grew up with adults telling you to eat carrots because it can improve your eyesight, and would make you see better at night. It may be nice to know that a single vegetable can give you these important benefits, except there is absolutely no truth to it.

According to reports, the idea about carrots stemmed back to war times when the British apparently creating these benefits carrots can give to trick the Germans into thinking British pilots had developed "night sight" from all the carrots they were eating. However, it was, in fact, the first introduction of radar technology that the British were using to see enemy planes approached in the dark.

However, the food myth has a spec of truth to it and was incredibly exaggerated. Huffington Post reported that carrots contain beta-carotene which is absorbed by the body and converted into vitamin A, an important vitamin that is beneficial for the skin and the immune system. It was also said that it is good for the eyes. It was said that it can prevent cataract and help adjust the eyes to a dark room when you enter from a well-lit place.

As a matter of fact, the antioxidant beta-carotene is named after carrots, as it was first isolated from the root vegetables. However, it is not true what some have claimed that it can aid in the correction of near-sightedness, or help people see in the dark. Straits Times also reported that when a person suffers from an insufficient amount of vitamin A, supplements can improve night vision, but it only happens when that person has a poor eye-sight which was primarily brought about by the lack of vitamin A.

"In countries where the food system is less sophisticated and we see crushing poverty, the margin between harvest season and the hungry season is palpable," says Keith West, a public health professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who studies Vitamin A's role in the body. "These populations can dip into actual deficiency with Vitamin A, especially in respect to young, growing children who can become what we call 'night blind.'"

Wired wrote that in developed countries, an average person would have to stop eating any Vitamin A containing food for a month or several months before they became truly deficient. West explained. He also said that these people work hard for the amount of vitamin A they get. And since the body keeps the molecule in the liver vitamin A can be released from the liver when the body needs it.

It is also important to note that there are plenty of staple foods that are rich in vitamin A including spinach, sweet potato, and squash are alternatives that you can turn to, and eating sufficient vegetables should ensure your eyes get the vitamin A it needs.

Meanwhile, experts also say that when you eat a gigantic amount of carrots or other vegetables, the body will only convert enough amount of vitamin A it needs from the beta-carotene, not more. However, it is actually one way of helping your body, since consuming too much vitamin A can be dangerous, and may damage your liver.