Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Carrots as Sweetener

What is one of the most healthiest foods? Carrots!! They are rich in Vitamin A. Carrots are one of my kids' favorite foods. They love to take them out of the fridge and snack on them hence my love for going to Aldi's and getting a 1# bag of the baby carrots for 69 cents!



Did you know that you can use carrots as sweetener instead of adding sugar to your foods? Since my kids love them it is easy for me to add them to different dishes. Although I have a few that would rather eat them raw than cooked!


I love to add shredded carrots to my tomato based dishes. I could just chop the carrots up but I have several who don't like seeing chunks of veggies, especially in their spaghetti sauce. To add the extra vitamins along with sweetening the dish, I shred the veggies that I am going to put in my tomato based dishes. When I am doing spaghetti sauce in my big 6 quart crockpot that I fill about 3/4 full,  I added about 6-10 baby carrots to my sauce. I find when I shred the carrots as the dish simmers the carrots pretty much disappears leaving me the nutrients in the sauce and no chunks for my picky eaters.

Also adding the carrots to the tomato based sauces helps to neutralize the acid from the tomatoes. I have found that when I add carrots to the sauce I do not have near the problem of heartburn or feeling ill than when I forget to add the carrots.

Adding carrots to tomato based dishes for my sweetener and added vitamins works for me!

1 comment:

Denise Thornton said...

I recently learned that January is National Carrot Month. I agree with you, and think they should all be carrot month.
Last week I attended a lecture by a carrot collector and researcher from UW-Madison and learned a ton.
Some of it might be interesting for your home schooling curriculum.
check it out,
http://digginginthedriftless.wordpress.com/2010/01/26/the-soul-of-a-carrot-part-two/

Bugs Bunny rules!
Denise Thornton