Baby Carrots = Heavily processed - Would you still eat them?

According to Randy Worobo, an associate professor of food microbiology at Cornell University, you need not worry. As reported in Prevention magazine, he says <b> carrots are not preserved in bleach but rinsed in a chlorine wash that's recommended by the FDA to kill bacteria such as salmonella and E. coli. Most pre-cut produce, including frozen vegetables and fruit salad, is washed with this or similar sanitizers.

Baby Cut and Peeled Carrots are treated with chlorine. It is used as an anti-microbial treatment to control potential contamination in the finished product. Carrots that are treated with chlorine are subsequently soaked and rinsed with potable water to remove the excess chlorine before being packaged.

Sanitizers that can be used to wash or to assist in lye peeling of fruits and vegetables are regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in accordance with the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act as outlined in the Code of Federal Regulations, Title 21, Ch. 1, Section 173.315.

Chlorine is routinely used as a sanitizer in wash, spray, and flume waters used in the fresh fruit and vegetable industry. Anti-microbial activity depends on the amount of free available chlorine (as hypochlorous acid) in water that comes in contact with microbial cells. The effectiveness of chlorine in killing pathogenic microorganisms has been extensively studied." For more information on the use of Chlorine as a routine anti-microbial sanitizer, you can visit the following government web site;
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol3no4/beuchat.htm