Carrots are rich in vitamins and are used to prepare many delicious dishes such as stewed in chicken curry, fried with other vegetables. Carrots are also good for your health. However, these are only true when using fresh carrots.Continue reading to learn more about how to tell if carrots are bad!
How is carrot good for health?
The carrot can bring you many health benefits including:
- Contain many antioxidants, which can reduce the risk of cancer.
- Help you see better, vitamin A in carrots will improve your eyesight.
- Help you have beautiful skin and smooth hair (carrot is rich in vitamins A, C, E)
- Be grown and used all year round and used in savory dishes, juices, and cakes.
What are the ways to preserve carrots
In the past
In old times, people often used a root cellar for food storage. You can also apply this traditional way to preserve carrots. A basement provides a cool temperature and reducing light would be ideal to prolong the shelf life of carrot.
Besides, you can fill sawdust or damp sand inside big containers to reserve the carrots. By this way, they will be kept fresh in many months.
At present
Nowadays, most people use refrigerators to preserve food.
How long can carrots stay in a refrigerator?
After you buy and bring the carrots to home, you cut off their stem and leaves. Get rid of the leaves because they tend to get the moisture out the carrot tissues. Roots sealed in vacuum bags and stored in compartments for vegetables, or wherever that has cold air is dispersed. Do by this way, you will keep carrots fresh, with a lost minimum of nutrients, for up to 10 days or several weeks.
Keep in long-lasting reserve, place the carrots on top of the paper napkin in the vegetable crisper. Replace the paper towel if they are wet. Carrots will be fresh for 3 months or more outlasting if kept dry and cool like that.
How long can carrots stay in a freezer?
To the carrots frozen, you need to cut them into bars have the same size, drench them in water boils at approximately 100 degrees Celsius for five minutes. Then, immediately quickly reduce their temperature by putting in an ice bath. If you cut up carrots into small pieces or slices form matchstick shape, you should only blanch them in two minutes and repeat the next steps as above.
When they cooled completely, let them drain and put on a tray in the freezer.
By this way, carrots will remain in good shape for eight to twelve months.
How are bad carrots harmful to your health?
Ingesting bad carrots can result in a stomach ache, food poisoning or even long-term health effects. So, how to tell if carrots are bad?
Signs to identify bad carrots
What are signs to identify bad carrots or how to tell if carrots are bad, rotten or spoiled? This is definitely what you are now concerned most about.
● Outer shell
Based on the biological structure of plants, the thin outer shell protects the carrot interior. When the shell has abnormal expressions, you should pay attention carefully.
When a white-ish outer surface appears on carrots, this indicates that the carrot is dehydrated. If you see this sign in the outer surface of carrots, they will be not safe to eat. Thus, you should either use them immediately or throw them away.
● The surface flesh
If you find a slippery coating, mucus on the surface flesh of carrots, you should get rid of these carrots. If you try to eat them, you are likely to face some health problems as abdominal pain, diarrhea, vomiting, etc. If carrots are mushy, soft and viscous that means they went bad, you should not be eaten under any circumstances.
● Smell
If your carrots have a foul smell, most this is a sign that your carrot was soft rot due to invading bacteria. In the case of slimy carrots, you should throw them away immediately.
● Expiry Date
You can check the expiry date of the carrot that is printed on its pack if you buy them at the department stores or supermarkets. Carrots sold at these places have a clear origin and expiry date. When they are out of date, you should not use them anymore.
Conclusion
Carrots are thought of as the ultimate food source for health. In fact, that’s true because it is a very nutritious food but it is also only true when you use ones properly. Using bad carrots can be harmful to your health, may even make you sick. After reading our article, hope you find the answer to the question: “how to tell if carrots are bad?”
