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The Sweet Call of Carrot Juice

If the number of hits on Google is any indication, carrot juice is a highly popular and frequently-documented item.

When I Googled "carrot juice" earlier this week, 1.7 million hits turned up. Not bad, for a mere veggie juice. But then again, I was pretty sure that carrots held a positive chunk of popularity in our collective perception of the building blocks to good health.

For me, carrot juice emerged as a daily, before-supper drink prepared by my mother during my childhood. It didn't stop me from having to wear glasses, but perhaps there were other benefits. I'm not sure. I didn't like the taste. I determined that when I became an adult, I would not allow that frothy orange liquid to pass through my digestive tract again.

I managed to evade carrot juice for years until my bargain-seeking partner showed up one day with a hundred pounds of carrots in two gigantic bags. These gnarled and mutant roots had been deeply discounted by a fruit and vegetable stand proprietor eager to close for the season. Who can resist so much produce for the low, low price of $10? So these things ended up on our balcony, offering little culinary appeal other than for juice.

Again I resisted while my partner consumed his daily glass. Since it takes about a pound of carrots to get a glass full, you can see that he had a hundred days of carrot juice ahead of him. He didn't make it. Eventually, several pounds of carrots got turfed and carrot juice resumed its status for me as a mere memory.

But, then we had kids. I started to recreate my own childhood and felt the compelling call of carrot juice. I started to juice carrots. So far, the kids are guzzling it.

Nutritionally, carrot juice has good and bad points. It's rich in Vitamin A, but unfortunately high in sugar. Considering we are now deep into flu season, with the fear of avian flu circling over us like a flock of vultures, I wondered if carrot juice would have any muscle in the goal of immune boosting, particularly for children.

Naturopathic Physician Nicole Dahl suggests it depends on whether the goal is prevention or treatment. For prevention, carrot juice has anti-viral potential, but for treatment, she doesn't recommend it. "It's not really a fighting-the-flu kind of therapy," she said in a recent interview.

"The juice has got a high sugar content and when you're sick, the sugar content even from a vegetable juice will impair the body's immune function."

"We know that one tablespoon of sugar impairs the immune system by 60 percent for an hour so this is not something I recommend during flu season."

Dr. Dahl suggests parents be conservative when offering juice to children. "I wouldn't be giving them 8 ounces of any kind of juice a day. Little bits in small quantities if they're not eating the actual food (such as carrots). Once you get to be an adult, you can handle the sugars a bit more."

Dr. Dahl says she wouldn't use carrot juice generally, but specifically to treat particular conditions. However, you might drink carrot juice to supplement a nutrient-poor diet such as one with excessive microwaving. (See this information on food changes caused by microwaving: www.drnicoledahl.com.)

Adding kale or other green vegetables to carrot juice helps. The juice pictured here is carrot and romaine lettuce. Dr. Dahl suggests adding chard, which doesn't have a strong taste but high nutritional benefits.

So where am I now? All those gallons of carrot juice dutifully consumed in my childhood seem more like pediatric torture. The ubiquitous carrot juice can move from the "must have" column in my parenting repertoire to the "occasional use" category.

Apparently neither Bugs Bunny nor my mom got the memo.