Can carrots help improve your vision?

QUOTE from Mae West (my Uncle Lewie's girlfriend): 'The only carrots that interest me are the number you get in a diamond."

What I LEARNED today: Everyday I eat 4-5 mini-carrots for my noon lunch. Ever since I was four years old I can remember Mom telling me to eat my carrots as they were good for my eyesight. While eating my carrots for lunch yesterday I was trying to read some fine print in a magazine and couldn't get the job done. I had to get a magnifying glass to figure out what the words were. I was thinking that with all the carrots I've eaten in my life I shouldn't have to be using a magifying glass to read this. Maybe Mom was lying to me - did she really know what she was tallking about? So I did some research and found out she didn't know what she was talking about. She wasn't lying either because she thought it was the truth. So here is what I LEARNED about carrots and eyesight.

According to SNOPES.com the claim that "Eating carrots results in improved vision" is FALSE.
The myth that carrots are so wonderful for eyesight comes out of World War II.
In WWII, Britain's air ministry spread the word that a diet of carrots helped British pilots see Nazi bombers attacking at night. That was a LIE intended to cover the real matter of what was underpinning the British Royal Air Force's recent successes in pinpointing some Nazi bombers before they reached the English Channel. The real reason was that Britain had invented airborne interception RADAR, also known as AI.

British Intelligence didn't want the Germans to find out about the superior new technology (radar) which was helping protect the nation, so they created a rumor to afford a somewhat plausible-sounding explanation for the sudden increase in bombers being shot down. News stories began appearing in the British press about extraordinary personnel manning the defenses, including Flight Lieutenant John Cunningham, an RAF pilot dubbed "Cats Eyes" on the basis of his exceptional night vision that allowed him to spot his prey in the dark. Cunningham's abilities were chalked up to his love of carrots. Further stories claimed RAF pilots were bing fed goodly amounts of carrots to foster similar abilities in them.

The disinformation was so persuasive that the English public took to eating carrots to help them find their way during the blackouts.

(However there is a bit of something to the carrot/vision presumption: Beta-carotene, which is found in carrots, may help reduce the risk of cataract and maculat degeneration.)

So now I know and you also know how the myth of carrots and improved eyesight got started. This is why I love history - little tidbits of history like this make life more interesting.


GRATITUDE for today: Two years ago today I wrote in my Gratitude Journal that I was grateful for yoga. Yoga has been part of my life for 40 years.. I'm grateful that I learned about yoga from a school assembly we had for our junior high students in 1971.. That's what started my interest in it. The best thing I learned about yoga was the breathing techniques, I still do them every morning.

HUMOR for today: More "funnies" about the differences between men and women.

BATHROOMS: A man has six items in his bathroom: tootbrush, toothpaste, shaver, comb, bar of soap, and a towel.
The average number of items in the typical woman's bathroom is 337. A man would not be able to identify more than 20 of these items.

ARGUMENTS: A woman has the last word in any argument. Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument.

FUTURE: A woman worries about the future until she gets a husband. A man never worries about the future until he gets a wife.

MARRIAGE: A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn't. A man marries a woman expecting that she won't change, but she does.