Several times in recent weeks the question has come up in conversation: How are "baby carrots" produced?

Turns out, there are two types of baby carrots. The real ones, pictured at left, are carrots that are naturally grown to be stubby. The more common baby carrots, the vegetable dip ones that are sold in small plastic bags in grocery stores (pictured at right), are actually known as "baby-cut carrots." Those come from larger carrots that have been peeled, cut and rounded to a uniform size.

Here's a short producepedia.com video that shows the process:

The baby carrot fad is a relatively recent development, as Bobby Bognar, the host of the History Channel's "Food Tech," explains in a recent Wall Street Journal interview:

"You know those little baby carrots? You never saw those before the 80s. The idea came from a farmer who realized he was throwing away a third of his carrot crop because they were broken. He shaved them down and called them baby carrots. Now they lead sales in all carrots."

That account is generally accepted as true, and most sources point to Mike Yurosek as the farmer who started the trend. But whereas Yorusek started selling baby carrots as a way to use broken or oddly-shaped carrots and divert them from the trash, food producers now harvest full-size carrots in order to produce baby carrots, and the cutting and shaping of carrots probably creates more waste.

Grist advice columnist Umbra Fisk takes issue with baby carrots for another reason:

"When you buy precut and shaped baby carrots, you are contributing to a market trend for snack foods of all types. Marketers see the two-bite carrot bonanza as part of the rising demand for completely effortless foods. That "demand" leads to over-packaging and over-processing of normal foods, which is wasteful, annoying, depressing, and weird."

Perhaps it is a bit weird, but I can't get too upset about selling vegetables as snack food.

-Mark