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Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm josh, there's

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Speaker 1: chucking this short stuff. It's the shortest of the stuffs.

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Speaker 1: I think, I believe I'm right. You ever heard the

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Speaker 1: uh the old kids song Carrots, carrots good for your heart.

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Speaker 1: The more you eat, the better your eyes. No, who

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Speaker 1: wrote that? I did? Just now, Okay, that's fine then

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Speaker 1: if it was off the cuff. But I mean, man,

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Speaker 1: if that went through like a focus group or something.

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Speaker 1: You like carrots? Oh, I love carrots. As a matter

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Speaker 1: of fact, researching this, I ate two raw carrots while

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Speaker 1: I was reading. I eat raw carrots all the time,

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Speaker 1: like with the skins on and everything. Oh. You don't

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Speaker 1: even do a little peel huh, No, just wash them up.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes you should watch them, you know, they come out

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Speaker 1: of the dirt. I know. But so I've read, and

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Speaker 1: I think we talked about there's this idea that vegetarians

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Speaker 1: don't get some sort of um like beneficial bacteria because

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Speaker 1: the vegetables are so well rinsed and washed in the

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Speaker 1: United States and there's some something in the dirt that

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Speaker 1: is helpful. But I mean, yeah, I mean when I

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Speaker 1: wash my potatoes and carrots and stuff, I don't do

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Speaker 1: like the the brush scrub or anything like that. I

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Speaker 1: just give them a good sort of hand rense, Right,

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Speaker 1: So I'm sure I'm getting some some good dirt in there. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you want to make it. You want to get it

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Speaker 1: under your fingernails and then lick it out from under

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Speaker 1: your fingernails. That's the healthiest way. So we're talking about

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Speaker 1: carrots though, because the old adage that carrots are good

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Speaker 1: for your eyes. And here's the deal, and we'll talk

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Speaker 1: kind of all about this. Carrots are good for your eyes,

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Speaker 1: but um, they're not like a cure if you have

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Speaker 1: anything other than a vitamin AID deficiency, which is why

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Speaker 1: your eyes may be going bad. Right, And even if

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Speaker 1: you already have like a problem from vitamin A deficiency,

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Speaker 1: they're not necessarily going to reverse the issue. But from

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Speaker 1: what I can tell, carrots are a really good preventative

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Speaker 1: or um Vitamin A deficiency related eye issues. Um. And

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Speaker 1: we'll talk about how that works in a second. But first, Chuck,

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Speaker 1: I want to tell you when I was younger, Um,

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Speaker 1: we used to have a great neighborhood for playing things

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Speaker 1: like kick the can, And I remember specifically explaining to

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Speaker 1: some of my friends that I was playing with that

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Speaker 1: I was able to see them so clearly at night

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Speaker 1: because I ate a bunch of carrots, like I've always

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Speaker 1: eaten carrots. And I meant that as sincerely as I've

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Speaker 1: ever said anything in my life. And I just yesterday

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Speaker 1: figured out that I was totally full of it and

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Speaker 1: didn't realize it. And when one of the other boys

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Speaker 1: shoved you, you said that your dad was going to

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Speaker 1: sue their family for all the money they had. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever said that, my I thankfully,

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Speaker 1: I always was like, that's that's lame. Yeah, yeah, you're

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Speaker 1: you're the only eight year old going, well, that's called

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Speaker 1: a frivolous lawsuit, my friend to reform now, So yeah,

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Speaker 1: you might have been Uh, that might have been a

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Speaker 1: carryover for you from this story from World War Two

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Speaker 1: in the UK. Apparently the British Royal Air Force had

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Speaker 1: a story they published about the fighter pilot John Cat's

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Speaker 1: Eye Cunningham, who they could thank for his diet of carrots,

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Speaker 1: for the fact that he was so good at night

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Speaker 1: and these dog fights that he would get into at night,

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Speaker 1: and so people drank it up. They grew carrots, And

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Speaker 1: it turns out It was all sort of a false story,

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Speaker 1: cooked up for propaganda sake to cover up their radar technology. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they didn't want everybody to know that they were using radar,

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Speaker 1: so they said, there's this guy who's eating so many

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Speaker 1: carrots that he can see German bombers at night. You

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Speaker 1: know what they really said? What they said, hay, old boy,

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Speaker 1: what do you think about just dangling you as the

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Speaker 1: old carrot as it were? Oh? Man, that was that

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Speaker 1: was good. Yeah. I think we should also specify his

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Speaker 1: nickname wasn't cats size, it was cat's eyes. He wasn't

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Speaker 1: like the size of a cat. Mm hmm yeah, c

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Speaker 1: A T s apostrophe e y e, not c A

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Speaker 1: T s i z e, because that's what it sounded

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Speaker 1: like at first. I got you cat size, cat size.

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Speaker 1: He's the cutest darn little slying pilot. Oh no, boy,

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Speaker 1: that's good. Um, So that's totally made up. It's British propaganda. Um.

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Speaker 1: And you don't actually see better in the dark from

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Speaker 1: eating carrots. They were just covering up radar ues. That's

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Speaker 1: one of the best things I've ever learned in my

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Speaker 1: entire life. I love that. In fact, that's just wonderful.

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Speaker 1: But it does not mean that carrots aren't good for

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Speaker 1: your eyes. And we're going to describe how carrots are

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Speaker 1: good for your eyes after a break about that, Chuck,

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Speaker 1: it sounds great much much as sky should know. Okay, boy,

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Speaker 1: that was a great first half if you asked me, Chuck. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and you know what, I want to applaud you for

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Speaker 1: not eating baby carrots. Well there I hear. They're bleached.

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Speaker 1: They're bleached, and they're also I think the story is

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Speaker 1: it's a very wasteful thing, right the process. Oh, I

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Speaker 1: don't know, is it. I mean I think so you

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Speaker 1: can just look at a baby carrot and where does

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Speaker 1: the rest of the stuff go. I thought that they

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Speaker 1: were made from carrots that didn't pass mustard to be

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Speaker 1: sold um normally, and then they just kind of whittled

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Speaker 1: it down. But yeah, I guess that that would be

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Speaker 1: a waste because most of the carrot that wouldn't most

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Speaker 1: of the produce that doesn't get sold is it's just cosmetic.

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Speaker 1: I think we talked about food waste before like that,

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Speaker 1: didn't we. Yeah, and you know what, I tried to

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Speaker 1: buy one of those the other day. The grocer was

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Speaker 1: laying out lemons and he had one that didn't look good.

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Speaker 1: He said it to the side, and I said, kind

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Speaker 1: of have that one and he said no, He said,

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Speaker 1: but it looks just like a Blincoln because I know

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna sell it on eBay. Alright, so I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: take issue with that guy. And we should do a

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Speaker 1: short stuff on what's the deal with baby carrots once

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Speaker 1: we figure that out too, all right, for sure, for sure.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, I don't eat baby carrots because I have

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Speaker 1: heard the bleach. Although I must admit I've never done

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Speaker 1: the actual research. It was enough of it. Yeah, that's true.

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Speaker 1: I like man size stuff, so, uh, Beta carroteen is

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Speaker 1: sort of the big ingredient that is the pigment, and

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Speaker 1: not just in carrots, but in a lot of things

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Speaker 1: like sweet potatoes, a lot of orange things. I think

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Speaker 1: it'sn't one of the melons rich with beta karantine canna loope.

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Speaker 1: I've never heard of that one. That's funny, you're kidding, right, yeah, okay,

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Speaker 1: but it could have been one of those things that

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Speaker 1: you've never seen written out before, you know, like like fatricious.

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Speaker 1: I don't even know how to spell that F A

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Speaker 1: C E T I O U S it looks like

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Speaker 1: fastidious or something. Yeah, fascetious or something, or what's the

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Speaker 1: one he used to get wrong all the time? Oh

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Speaker 1: delete de so. Beta carotene is this pigment. It's in

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Speaker 1: a lot of orange fruits and veggies, and it is

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Speaker 1: rich with vitamin A. And we've already discussed vitamin A

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Speaker 1: is in in the developing world, vitamin A. If you

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Speaker 1: don't have enough of it, it is a leading cause

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Speaker 1: of blindness. Um. There are some other conditions that a

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Speaker 1: lack of vitamin A can cause with the eyes, one

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Speaker 1: called zero thalamia, where you don't produce tears. You have

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Speaker 1: a lot of dryness. Obviously, your eyelids can swell. Uh,

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Speaker 1: and you can get ulcers in your cornea. It sounds awful,

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Speaker 1: it does, uh. And then also macular degeneration UM, which

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Speaker 1: is a problem everywhere. It's like one of the main

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Speaker 1: causes people lose their vision as they age. But from

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Speaker 1: what I've read, that's not like it's not just a UM,

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Speaker 1: a natural normal outcome of aging, Like you can prevent

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Speaker 1: it in. One of the ways that you can prevent

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Speaker 1: it or stave it off is from eating plenty of

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Speaker 1: carrots or eating plenty plenty of foods that are rich

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Speaker 1: in beta carotene, because I don't think we've said it yet.

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Speaker 1: Beta caroteen is a precursor to vitamin A. We eat

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Speaker 1: things like that, like carrots that contain beta carotene, and

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Speaker 1: our bodies go boop boop, poop, poop poop and turn

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Speaker 1: it into vitamin a and go here you go. Here's

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Speaker 1: use some of this and your eyes pack it in

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Speaker 1: the macula and it fortifies it against macular degeneration. That's right.

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Speaker 1: And we mentioned sweet potatoes in the cantilupe. But also

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Speaker 1: of course mango. You got your pumpkin, you got your apricot.

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Speaker 1: Kind of most of those orange colored foods except for oranges. Oranges, yeah,

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Speaker 1: they don't have beta guarantine. I don't think that is

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Speaker 1: just stupid. I know, what do you do in orange? Um?

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Speaker 1: Some milk apparently has it, so a lot of cheeses

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Speaker 1: have it, egg yolks um have it. Liver has it.

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Speaker 1: Liver has everything, I think, because it's just everything gets

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Speaker 1: stuck in the liver, so you're you're ingesting everything. Right then,

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Speaker 1: I'm not a big liver fan either, although I do

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Speaker 1: love it. I love a good patty, but like, I

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Speaker 1: wouldn't eat like just a grilled liver or something like that.

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Speaker 1: It'd fall through the grates, I think on a grill,

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Speaker 1: wouldn't it. Yeah, I mean that's that's where I go

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Speaker 1: south with with any like survival competition. I love those shows,

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Speaker 1: but I don't know, man. I mean maybe if it

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Speaker 1: was life and death, I could bring myself to it.

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Speaker 1: But eating in trails and livers and brains and stuff

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Speaker 1: just very very tough for me. Not a sweetbread fan,

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Speaker 1: huh new. And that's a terrible name for that stuff.

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Speaker 1: It is. There's a you know, there's that footnote in

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Speaker 1: our book about sweetbreads being like the greatest culinary euphemism

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Speaker 1: of all time because those things are not. That's that's

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Speaker 1: just about as great as it comes for that kind

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Speaker 1: of thing. Because you talk calamus or something, or the

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Speaker 1: thyroid gland. Yeah, and the pancreas. I think I think

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Speaker 1: you're referring to our book that you can pre order now, right, Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: stuff you should know Colon an incomplete compendium of mostly

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Speaker 1: interesting things which can be pre ordered everywhere in the

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Speaker 1: world right now. Yeah, I read those footnotes. There are

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Speaker 1: a lot of fun So where are we are. We

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Speaker 1: are basically at the point where I think we kind

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Speaker 1: of wrap this up, chuck, because we've we've talked about

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Speaker 1: beta caroten being important, We've talked about UM vitamin A,

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Speaker 1: and then I guess we should also mention lutine loutins

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Speaker 1: and antioxidant that's also found in carrots, which makes carrots

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Speaker 1: even even more potent health wise. UM that really kind

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Speaker 1: of helped them prevent macular degeneration too. Yeah, I think

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Speaker 1: they increase your pigment density, and the macula is where

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Speaker 1: that happens. In the macula you always hear about macular degeneration,

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Speaker 1: but that's the little oval yellow area near the retina. Yes,

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Speaker 1: and when that goes you can't see so well, so

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Speaker 1: you want to keep that healthy. So basically, I think

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Speaker 1: what we're trying to say is go out preorder our

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Speaker 1: book and then while you do, eat some raw carrots,

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Speaker 1: but not the baby kind. Yeah, eat raw carrots, and

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Speaker 1: then if you want more lutine, you can also eat

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Speaker 1: dark leafy greens and kale and Swiss shard and stuff

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Speaker 1: like that. And don't forget our book. And since I

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Speaker 1: said that, choke, I think short stuff is out, don't

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Speaker 1: you Yes Out Stuff You Should Know is a production

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Speaker 1: of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for

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Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts,

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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H