The truth about baby carrots

Dear M. Matt: Are the things sold as “baby carrots” (the variety sold in plastic bags) in the grocery store really baby carrots? Or are they regular-sized, adult carrots that have been cut and shaved down to just look like baby carrots? — A Concerned Consumer, Hillcrest

Another job I’m glad I don’t have on my resume. Baby-vegetable whittler. Adorable vegetables are hotter than a steam table these days — elfin artichokes, cuddly corn ears, ridiculous minibananas, silly little squash. Usually nestled up to a dab of meat centered in the obligatory pool of raspberry sauce, topped with a delicious pansy. Cute cuisine was a restaurant rage through the ’80s, and now we have the convenience of being overcharged for it at the neighborhood chowmart. These diminutive edibles come in several types: baby, that is, wrenched from the ground/stem/whatever before it’s full-sized; miniature, gene-tweaked to be near invisible at maturity; or faked. Carved. Lathe-turned.

“Baby” potatoes are an example of the first category. They’re the thin-skinned variety harvested when they’re ultrasmall, not a special strain of tiny spud. Lilliputian lettuce heads, full grown but the size of a softball, are true miniatures. According to the root-vegetable brain trust at UC Davis, supermarket veggies labeled “peeled baby carrots” fall into the third slot. Processors take the familiar, grown-up carrot (which seemed to need no improvement to begin with, near as I can tell), chop it, run the pieces through a series of machines that abrades and “polishes” them, then the “babies” are bagged. Their unnatural uniformity might give them away. Orlando Gold, a long, slim type grown in Florida, is a variety that’s often babied. Home gardeners, though, can buy several types of precious, tiny carrotlets to grow from seed. They’d be too expensive to market commercially.

A true immature carrot would be a very boring, unnutritious thing. They must reach adulthood to develop all their beta carotene, flavor, and color. You wouldn’t want to eat a true baby carrot.

The day will come when some restaurant will place before us an empty plate, with perhaps a light dusting of paprika, convince us it’s the ultimate dining experience, and charge us a sum just shy of our mortgage payment for the privilege. Personally, I’d rather die of Philly cheese steak poisoning. This recent food-downsizing mania — baby veggies, mini-Oreos, Ritz Bits, bag o’ burgers — does make me want to yell one of Ma Alice’s old standbys, “Stop playing with your food!”