Transcript
Day 6 of eating one carrot for every follower. Until I look like this guy. What the science. The primary phytonutrient in carrots is beta-carotene. Name that because you shouldn't need me to answer that. Beta-carotene is called a pro-vitamin A, which means that your liver and intestines have to convert it to the active form before it can really be used as vitamin A. Other foods like liver, egg yolks, and dairy have that already active pre-formed vitamin A, which your body can immediately use. But too much vitamin A, can be toxic. The upper tolerable limit per day is around 3,000 micrograms of the active form. And here's why this matters. A medium carrot typically contains 4 to 6 milligrams of beta carotene, which gets converted to roughly 500 micrograms of the active vitamin A, which would make the upper limit around 6 carrots per day. Except your body is smart. It's nose. As it gets more vitamin A, it slows down that conversion process, to the point where it's probably not possible to overdose problems way before that from all the fiber. However, all that beta-carotene does need to go somewhere, and it's not just pooped out. It gets stored in fat, blood, and skin, especially skin with a lot of sweat glands, like your forehead and palms. Studies have shown that 20 to 50 milligrams of beta carotene per day can start to turn your skin orange, like your mama told you. Even less than that, if it's in a bioavailable form, like in the ultimate carotenoid soup that I designed a while back to maximize bioavailability as an experiment to try and turn my skin orange by drinking it every day. It worked. But I combined it with lycopene to give a more healthy reddish glow. It actually looked really good. But if you've been paying attention, that means that once he starts getting four or more carrots per day, he'll probably start seeing skin coloration changes, which can start looking a bit odd, but it is safe and might protect him against UV rays from the sun in February. But the real question is, should I do my soup challenge again? And would you join me?
Additional notes
What happens if you eat an insane number of carrots? Is it dangerous, and will it turn you orange? You typically only absorb 15 to 30% of the carotenoids from raw carrots, but this can go way up if they’re prepared in the right way. Also fascinating: when multiple studies examined the coloration changes from eating carotenoids and compared them to color changes from being out in the sun, and then had people rate attractiveness levels across the board across all different skin types. People tended to rate the carotenoid-induced color changes as being more attractive. Of course that was to a minor level of coloration change. It's always possible that you could go too far. @becomingcarrot STUDIES doi: 10.1080/17470218.2014.94419 doi: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2010.09.003 doi: 10.1111/ajpy.12163 #health #science #nutrition #skinhealth #carrots #tiktoklearningcampaign
References
- Study title not listed in workbook. DOI: 10.1080/17470218.2014.94419. Source: https://doi.org/10.1080/17470218.2014.94419
- Study title not listed in workbook. DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2010.09.003. Source: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2010.09.003
- Study title not listed in workbook. DOI: 10.1111/ajpy.12163. Source: https://doi.org/10.1111/ajpy.12163