Not terribly surprising, though quite uncommon.As a kid i ate regular sized carrots often and my favorite thing to do was to try to finagle the core of the carrot out for fun. Its typically easier to do if you can make a lengthwise slit down the carrot, then work the inner core out. I presume the particular baby carrot in the video got cracked or accidentally cut, while leaving the core intact which popped out by happenstance.
So-called âbaby carrotsâ are actually blemished or deformed âadult carrotsâ. The defective carrots are cut into short lengths and lathed down to remove the abnormalities. Itâs much more profitable than selling them as horse feed or just pureeing/mulching them.
I guess the cutting machine made an extra partial cut for some reason. The rest of it is the natural core of the carrot as Grey_Devil pointed out. Maybe hitting the slightly denser core triggered a safety halt in the cutting machine.
As mentioned âbabyâ carrots are lathed. into their shape. Iâm not sure why the core would be replaced into that carrot.
But itâs exactly the same shape and form from a âVegetable turningâ lathâŚor vegetable turner. (the kind of thing that makes those long strands of carrots or radishes at Japanese sushi bars). I have one and itâs great for making raw zucchini threads, or garnishes for sushi and shashimi.
http://www.bharatmoms.com/uploads/Image/Spiral%20Vegetable%20Slicer%20cutter.JPG
Iâm guessing it was just a fracture, which didnât propagate through the core. that and a loose core, nothing but tumbling around necessary.
Maybe this was just an âoldâ carrot. Sometimes when theyâve been growing for more than a year they develop a woody core.
According to Wikipedia, baby-cut carrots are cut into 2-inch lengths and then tumbled in rotating peeling tanks that scrape off the skin and round the edges. This is probably a lot more efficient than being shaped on a lathe. (Reminds me of the old joke about individual toothpicks being lathed down from whole trees!)
The NEW and IMPROVED BOING BOING!!
A carrot. Just look at it.
Donât think we didnât notice the distinct lack of bananas in this post!
âI am curious orange.â
Nature, how does that work?
Looks like somebody disturbed a rabbit while it was making a container to hide its stash.
Hadnât heard that, now have an image of some sweatshop with skilled machinists lathing away at a pile of carrots.
I suspect it was the Curious Orange that caused me to read this headline as being about an inquisitive carrot, rather than an odd one.
Curious Orange later honed those natural skills and had a long investigative career with the FBI. Special Agent Orange solved many puzzling crimes, often bypassing red herrings to cut straight to the root of the situation.
I was under the impression that rather than being defective, the carrots used for baby carrots were a different hybrid with a higher sugar content and lower angle of taper so you can get more appropriate-diameter small ones from one big one without wasting too much from the top.
At least in my experience, âbaby carrotsâ are actual small carrots. âBaby-cut carrotsâ are the regular carrots lathed into weird little pellet shapes.
Thatâs a Soviet-era dead drop. Theyâre scattered all over the placeâŚ
These seem like good explanations, but I think the answer is more simple: What you have spotted is a male and female caroot. And thatâs where baby carrots really come from.
