September 5, 2010
FEATURED PRODUCT: Dried Carrot Juice Crystals
Carrots provide a nutritious and colorful vegetable ingredient for a wide variety of
processed food products. Encore Fruit Marketing can provide an excellent source of
dried carrot juice crystals to help consumer products deliver one of the 5 A Day vegetable servings.
Dried carrot juice crystals is carefully processed from fresh, wholesome carrots to provide the essential carrot
nutrition and color, in a convenient, ready to use dry ingredient form. Dried carrot juice crystals is an excellent
ingredient to add carrot to your retail label for any product where carrot fiber in a dry
form is desired, such as nutrition bars and snacks.
Contact Encore Fruit Marketing today for your sample and information on dried carrot juice crystals at www.encorefruit.com,
or e mail sales@encorefruit.com.
Background
People eat raw carrots alone or in salads. They also eat them boiled or sometimes prepared with soups and stews.
In some parts of the world, they have been roasted, ground, and used as a substitute for coffee. The plant's thick,
lacy leaves and long stems are also edible and may be chopped up and sprinkled on meats.
Three types are grown commercially: (1) fresh market carrots, such as the Imperator and Nantes varieties;
(2) processing or dicing carrots, such as the Danvers and Chantaney varieties; and (3) baby carrots. They differ
in size and use. Imperator carrots measure about 9 inches (23 centimeters) long. They are sold fresh in grocery
stores. Dicing varieties are wider than Imperators and about 7 to 8 inches (18 to 20 centimeters) long. They are
cut up and sold frozen or canned. Baby ones grow about 3 inches (8 centimeters) long and are sold as a novelty
or gourmet vegetable.
The vegetable grows from tiny seeds that are planted in rows about 1/2 inch (1.3 centimeters) deep. The rows of seeds
are spaced from 1 foot (30 centimeters) to more than 2 feet (60 centimeters) apart, depending on the type.
Carrots grow best in deep, rich soils that contain sand or muck. A crop takes about 100 days to grow. Large
crops are usually harvested mechanically, several rows at a time. Thay are grown in the summer in the northern
United States and southern Canada. They can be grown in winter in Florida and southern California.
They are native to the Mediterranean region. The ancient Greeks and Romans grew carrots that had thin, tough roots.
They used the plants as a medicine but not as a food. Carrots resembling modern types were later developed in France
and were common in Europe by the 1200's. Today, leading carrot-producing countries include China, Japan, Poland,
the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Scientific classification. This vegetable belongs to the parsley family, Apiaceae or Umbelliferae. Their scientific name
is Daucus carota, variety sativus.
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