Austria’s second most popular vegetable has been cultivated in a wide variety of colors and shapes for several thousand years.
Vienna (OTS) – A day for the carrot. The versatile root vegetables are only too happy to end up on our plates. Boiled, steamed, fried, grilled or raw – the superfood, which is available regionally all year round, delights all ages. If you don’t want to eat, you’ll still have it at least literally held in front of you.
Austrians eat almost 10 kilograms of carrots every year, a record figure even in international comparison. Only tomato tomatoes come to our tables more often. There are around 1,900 hectares of carrot cultivation area in Austria, spread across all federal states – almost 80 percent of which are in Lower Austria. With an annual harvest of almost 120,000 tons, the carrot ranks second behind onion vegetables. The carrot has also established itself as a valuable mainstay in organic farming – around a quarter of the harvest in this country is already organic.
The wild ancestors of the carrot are widespread from Europe to Central Asia. Violet-red and yellow varieties were probably selected from wild forms in Central Asia in ancient times. The carrot came to Europe during the 15th and 16th centuries. It was probably crossed by Dutch farmers with the white carrot, whereupon it became the orange carrot. This became so popular that the different colored carrots were cultivated less and less. The triumph of the orange beet began.
Exemplary
GLOBAL 2000 has been working more intensively on the carrot for almost 20 years. As part of the Pesticide Reduction Program (PRP) together with REWE Of course, carrots are also tested for pesticide residues. The good news is that the carrot almost has a pioneering role here. Currently, an average of around 15 samples are sampled per year. This may seem like little, considering that the last time carrots were exceeded according to the PRP standard was in 2015 – almost 10 years ago – but it is an understandable decision. Of all the vegetables examined in the PRP, carrots have the highest proportion of samples without evidence of pesticides.
The umbelliferous plants are rich in valuable vitamins and minerals. Beta-carotene in particular, a precursor to vitamin A, can be consumed with carrots. Too little of it and your eyesight, especially in the dark, suffers. More facts about carrots?
Questions & Contact:
Marcel Ludwig, GLOBAL 2000 press spokesman, +43 699 142000 20, marcel.ludwig@global2000.at