• Question: As the carrot started off purple and there are now many different colours, but mostly orange. What micro-organisms caused it to change and why.

    Asked by teamcarrot115 to Cat, Daz, Holly, Johnson, Pamela on 19 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Cat O'Connor

      Cat O'Connor answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      Oh golly teamcarrot115, I have no idea! Pam, Johnson, Holly, Daz: any idea?

      I thought the colour was caused by there being a load of chemicals called carotens in the carrot?

      I hope someone else can answer your question better!

      Cat

    • Photo: Darren Braddick

      Darren Braddick answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      Hey teamcarrot115!

      Well the orange colour is certainly the product of certain chemicals, the cartotenes, which are produced during the development of the carrot.

      Once upon a time, carrots were purple, but humans selected ones which were lighter and more orange, I guess! In fact, I have to be honest, I’m not sure micro-organisms do anything here.. But I do know that if you eat a lot of carrots (like, really huge amount!) the same coloured compounds can cause your skin to go orange too? I don’t know if that would also happen if the carrots were purple though.. It’s quite likely that the different coloured carrots taste different, so maybe that’s why people preferred the orange ones.

      I hope that’s OK.. I expect this isn’t a great answer, I’m sorry!!

      Daz

    • Photo: Pamela Lithgow

      Pamela Lithgow answered on 19 Jun 2011:

      Hi teamcarrot115,
      I get the feeling you like carrots!!
      Well carrots did start out different colours but they weren’t only purple there were also white yellow and red ones. Then in the 17th century Dutch people breed (crossed the different carrots) probably purple and red/white to make an orange carrot. They did this in honour of “William of Orange” (orange is a colour associated with Dutch people even today.). So that is when carrots became orange and people must have liked them and chosen them over the other colours so we mostly have orange now.
      So, no in this case I don’t think micro organisms had anything to do with it.
      I hope this helps with your carrot related queries.
      Pam 🙂

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