Health Benefits of Carrots
The carrot is an excellent vegetable as it has both nutritional and medicinal values which are essential for our optimum health.
Carrot also offers an excellence source of beta-carotene, which is 3.62milligram (equivalent to 1981 international unit for the value of vitamin A) in each 100 gram of carrots. Many studies have shown that carrot provide us the highest amount of beta-carotene among the list of vegetables we always consume everyday.
The best thing of carrot is that it is easily assimilated by our body. Chinese practitioners said that carrot tastes sweet, and it is good for the health of spleen and stomach. It is also believed to improve impotence (lower sexual drive), sexual dysfunction, night blindness, long term cough (or call hundred days cough in Chinese medical prescription) besides strengthening kidney and eliminating excessive wind and cold in our body.
Carrot has proved its outstanding role in anti-cancer effect. The research revealed that people with lack of beta-carotene were more likely to have 2 times higher risk of cancer than normal people. It is wiser to eat an appropriate amount of carrot per day to prevent cancer. This is because beta-carotene in the carrot can be easily changed by our body into vitamin A, which is essential for healthy cell growth, strong immune system and protection against mascular degeneration (AMD).
The research also found that carrot contains bulk of folic acid, a group of vitamin B, which has good effect to fight against free radicals (substances that cause cancer) in our body. The lignin found in carrot too, helps to strengthen our immune system to fight against cancerous cells. Potash succinate, its anti hypertensive drug properties may also help to reduce the blood pressure. Therefore, it is also regarded as a good diet for hypertension’s patient.
As carrot is fat-soluble substance, its nutrition is absorbed better with the presence of oil. Therefore, it is better to dip one drop of olive oil into a glass of carrot juice so that our body can effectively absorbed its nutrition.
