Photo fro Wikimedia
The Carrot Museum
sites that the origin of cultivated carrots were purple in color, not the characteristic orange color we have come to know them as.
There are numerous theories on when and why the orange color carrot came about, with the most popular story (although probably not true) that in the 1500's Dutch growers used a mutant yellow carrot seed to develop an orange carrot to honor the House of Orange, which was the Dutch royal family. Probably the most likely theory that was the hypothesis that and orange mutant variety was found and further developed by growers through selective breeding.
In the future they may be "rainbow" carrot that plant geneticist Philipp Simon, of Vegetable Crops Research Unit in Madison, Wisconsin is working to create. It would be a " a multi-pigmented root that naturally contains several antioxidants, such as lycopene, lutein, and anthocyanin".
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