1 Lb Of Carrots Price

How to buy carrots: cost, flavor, health, and time

Carrot prices range from 49 cents to $four a pound. Learning the trade-offs tin can assist yous save hundreds of dollars a year and enjoy better flavor. You lot really can't go wrong. Carrots are a Cook for Good staple, loaded with vitamin A, vitamin C, fiber, and other nutrients that keep your skin glowing, eyes sharp, your immune arrangement stiff, and reduce your risk of cancer and leukemia.

Carrot Prices (Chart)

I was surprised to find that carrot prices range from 49 cents a pound to four dollars a pound. Yet even the most expensive carrots — local, organic, and freshly harvested — are an affordable splurge at about 50 cents each. Grow your own for about a penny each, the best carrot deal of all!

chart compares carrot prices per pound for organic, conventional, full sized, baby carrots, and local carrots

Five-pound bags of organic carrots are a staple on Cook for Good's thrifty shopping lists, providing carrots at just 70 cents a pound or less than 9 cents each. Note that the 5-pound bag cost less per pound than the two-pound handbag, even when it's not on auction, and less than all the baby carrots. A two-pound bag of organic babe carrots costs the same per pound equally a i-pound purse of conventionally grown carrots.

Bottom line: organic carrots are wildly affordable.

For the Best Flavour, Choose Fresh Local Carrots

Have you always tasted a raw local carrot grown for flavor fresh from the field? I look forrad to the deep carrot flavor and sweet orangish crispness available from fall through spring. One of my farmers says that absurd-season carrots are the best because they abound more slowly, giving them fourth dimension to develop season. The flavor divergence between fresh local carrots and grocery-store carrots is not quite as dramatic as it is with vine-ripened local tomatoes and picked-green grocery-store tomatoes, but information technology'south shut. Elizabeth Schneider writes in Vegetables from Amaranth to Zucchini:

Carrots tin can be (and are, if you do some rooting around) more than than but orange crunch. One gustation of the genuine commodity volition suffice to restore your retentiveness or warning your senses. The departure is alarming: a truthful wake-up telephone call.

I love the await of carrots that come total of personality, with the tops fastened. Peel them but if they are resistant to scrubbing or if a crumb reveals bitter skin. If yous get carrots with tops, cut them off and store them separately. Otherwise the leaves volition draw wet from the roots, making the carrot roots dry out. (This is why I don't buy carrots with the tops on in the grocery shop.) You lot can apply carrot leaves in modest quantities in salads, soups, Green Gumbo, or cooked with other greens. Don't add together them to a smoothie unless you lot like taste and texture of wet dog hair.

smooth large local carrots

As much as I enjoy the weird shapes, it's easier to prepare local carrots that are as smooth as store-bought carrots and come without the tops. Some farmers grow xanthous and purple carrots too. You may even observe genuine baby carrots with the leaves on superlative: small, whole carrots of dwarf varieties or ones harvested early to make room for other carrots.

Bottom line: fresh local carrots are a worthy splurge in cool months, especially for eating raw, and a summit option for a home garden. You'll be supporting your local food system likewise.

For the All-time Overall Value, Cull Organic Grocery-Store Carrots

Bagged organic grocery-shop carrots are very thrifty, at about a quarter the price of local organic carrots, and taste pretty good. If you skin them, they are fine raw and delicious cooked in stews, glazed, roasted, or in broiled goods. They continue for weeks, which makes them a neat choice if yous tin can't go to the store very often. Before you buy, check the bags for water or damaged carrots. The h2o will brand them soggy and difficult to brown when roasting.

Bottom line: Organic bagged grocery store carrots are an essential kitchen staple unless you grow your own.

To Save Fourth dimension or in Special Circumstances, Cull Infant Carrots

Baby or cocktail carrots are actually long carrots bred for extra sweetness and uniform color, cut to size, peeled, and rinsed before being packed in plastic bags. The original idea was to reduce food waste past using parts of kleptomaniacal or otherwise not-perfect carrots.

You tin can just rinse babe carrots and eat or cook them, no peeling or cutting needed. (If yous want to roast them and the sizes are uneven, y'all may need to cut some in half for fifty-fifty cooking.) They are sweet, bland, and sometimes seem spongy. Before yous buy, check the sell-by engagement and check the pocketbook for water or orange slush, a sign of decomposing carrots. Because infant carrots are peeled, they age more rapidly.

Babe carrots still may be the best choice to get your kids to eat carrots. They're convenient if you lot accept arthritis, vision problems, or are only flat-out pressed for fourth dimension. I purchase organic infant carrots on trips when I don't have a kitchen or when I'one thousand cooking through a difficult time, simply prefer the freshness and flavor of whole, adult carrots.

Despite a persistant email rumor, though, baby carrots are safe, according to Dr. Weil. They haven't been dunked in clorine, just rinsed in water that has chlorine levels within the limits for tap water. If the the baby carrots turn white on the outside, that's dehydration, non chlorine. PubMed reveals lots of work on how to glaze baby carrots with starch, essential oils, or even to irradiate them to help them last longer and stay safe. Bank check the characterization for additives.

Lesser line: Babe carrots are a splurge only better than no carrots at all.

Carrot Recipes

carrot puree on jicama stars

Ready to cook with carrots? Try these recipes: Jicama Stars with Fennel and Carrot-Ginger Puree, Spring Salad, Roasted Carrot and Garlic Soup, Kale with Carrots, Golden Indian Carrots, Precious Spice Carrots, or Carrot Spice Block