Putting the baby in carrots

A couple of weeks ago, I started taking a look at certain veggies to help point out their positives in an attempt to incorporate them into my own diet.

A few weeks later though and I find myself not willing to try a new vegetable. The first one I looked at was sweet potatoes and so far so good; they've become regulars for me. But now, I've decided to look at something that I'm not quite as enthused as I was about the sweet potatoes.

Carrots. Baby carrots actually. It's not that I dislike the taste or anything, but baby carrots are, well, vegetables. But I've actually found success in snacking on them. They aren't the most filling things but sometimes when I'm in the mood to put things in my mouth I just set out a bowl of baby carrots and after a while the mood passes and instead of having downed several handfuls of tortilla chips, I had jammed a lot of good stuff down my throat.

Here are some statistics on the baby carrot: per 3 oz, baby carrots have 30 calories, 1.5 g fiber and 200 mg potassium. The fiber content is what's most appealing to me, that and the low calorie count. By themselves the carrots aren't filling but if I have some carrots and then an apple, that's a decent snack that is usually pretty filling. When you combine the 1.5 g fiber in the carrots with the 3-4 g fiber in the apple, in one sitting you've gotten about one-fifth of your fiber intake. Now, I prefer baby carrots because they are ready to eat but the regular sized carrots with skins on actually have more nutritional benefits. One 3-oz serving has 2.5 g fiber, for instance. I suppose it's a taste and convenience thing for me, but I may consider the regular carrots the next time I head to the store.

Still, I need to try and find a way to serve the carrots as a side dish rather than just eating them plain as a snack. I found some recipes here but now the fun part is sorting through them and figuring out which ones would still be relatively healthy.