Did You Know This?

                Remember those family dinners around six in the afternoon, where as a child all you could seem to hear was your parents ranting about how much you need to eat more vegetables, especially carrots. I have heard things in my past such as carrots would make me grow bigger and stronger, carrots would help my vision, or I would have to eat carrots if I wanted to grow up to be bugs bunny. As the gullible children that we once were, we believed every story they told us. Although some sayings may seem a little far-fetched, some do in fact hold many truths. Have you ever heard the saying; "if you eat too many carrots, you will turn orange. Well, it is in fact true. Eating excessive amounts of carrots can indeed make us orange.

According to Wisegeek,"Carotenosis is a medical condition caused by an excessive consumption of carotenoids. When someone develops carotenosis, his or her skin turns yellowish to orange (Smith)." Carotenoid can be found in vegetables such as papaw, pumpkin, and of course carrots. Carotenoid is what gives the vegetable color and as you can see between papaw, pumpkin, and carrots that they are all orange. Scientists have done a lot of research and placebo affected psychological experiments to prove this point. It turned out that the only thing that affected common results were a subject's speed of metabalism, age, and visibility amongst fair- skinned people. Still, un-controlled affects always seem to always show.

                When eating excessive amounts of carrots, a reaction by the term of Hypercarotenemia happens. Hypercarotenemia is the same as carotenes is. It is an absolute harmless and spontaneous effect. The over bearing amounts of vitamin A can cause someone to nearly identical in shade as your vegetable. What gives a papaw, pumpkin, or carrot color will do the same for you. Although it can be a frightening thing to see but, it will happen.

Carrots do make your skin orange, if you indeed decide to eat too much of it. It is not just our parents bluffing but, realizes that this is in fact true. So make sure after you read this to send an apology letter to mom or dad for not believing them all these years. For those who are looking spontaneously orange, you do not need to rush to the hospital; you may just need to slow down on your consumption of carrots.

Bibliography

Smith, S.E.. "wisegeek." What is Carotenosis?. Conjecture Corporation, n.d. Web. 4 Nov 2012. <http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-carotenosis.htm>

Scicurious, . "Friday Weird Science: Too Many Carrots." Scientific American. N.p., 26 2011. Web. 4 Nov 2012. <http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/scicurious-brain/2011/08/26/friday-weird-science-too-many-carrots-and-why-you-should-believe-your-dad/>.