Why are carrots good for you?

First of all I am going to highlight various carrot nutrition facts for you, so that you can see for yourself what a powerhouse the carrot is when it comes to topping up your levels of certain nutrients.

Below is a list of the nutrients found in a 3.5 oz serving of raw carrot. You can see the percentage of the total of each nutrient you should be getting each day, that this serving is able to provide.

Vitamins in raw carrot

First of all we will look at the vitamins found in raw carrot.

Vitamin A - 16705 IU - 334% (yes three hundred and thirty four per cent)
Vitamin K - 13.2 micrograms - 16%
Vitamin C - 5.9 milligrams - 10%
Vitamin B6 - 0.1 milligram - 7%
Vitamin B9 / Folate - 19 micrograms - 5%
Vitamin B3 / Niacin - 1 milligram - 5%
Vitamin B1 / Thiamin - 0.1 milligram - 4%
Vitamin B2 / Riboflavin - 0.1 milligram - 3%
Vitamin B5 / Pantothenic acid - 0.3 milligram - 3 %
Vitamin E - 0.7 microgram - 3%

Minerals in raw carrot

Now let's take a look at the minerals you will get from raw carrot.

Potassium - 320 milligrams - 9%
Manganese - 0.1 milligram - 7%
Phosphorus - 35 milligrams - 4%
Calcium - 33 milligrams - 3%
Magnesium - 12 milligrams - 3%
Sodium - 69 milligrams - 3%
Copper - 0.0 milligrams - 2%
Zinc - 0.2 milligram - 2%
Iron - 0.3 milligram - 2%
Selenium - 0.1 microgram - 0%

Additionally this serving of raw carrot offers 2.8 grams of dietary fiber, which equates to 11% of the total that your body needs in a day.

It is clear from the statistics that I have shown above, that the carrot is a real powerhouse when it comes to providing you with vitamin A. It is also a very positive way to keep your levels of vitamins C and K in check, as well as your potassium levels. As for the rest of the nutrients that are shown, the carrot acts as a strong contributor to getting all that you need of them.

There is no cholesterol in this serving of raw carrot, and only 0.2 grams of fat, of which none is saturated fat.

Each of the above nutrients plays a specific role, or roles, in the maintenance of your body. They help basic bodily processes take place that you and I both probably take for granted. Anything from the generation of new cells, to sending nerve impulses around your body, regulating fluid levels and giving you energy, the things vitamins and minerals do for you are quite amazing. If you don't eat foods like the carrot then you are don't get enough of them, and this will have an adverse effect on your health.

These carrot nutrition facts would vary slightly if you were to boil the carrot.

A very interesting fact about carrots is that if you were to eat them with something that contains fact, so as part of a main meal with meat, or perhaps carrot sticks with some sort of dip, you are helping your body to absorb fat soluble carotenoids that the carrots contain. Something with a bit of fat in can give the carrots a bit of extra flavor too! So it's not all about cutting down your calories to a maximum, carrots can prove to be quite a treat too.

Even more interesting is that the fat-soluble carotenoids in carrots are best absorbed by your body if you eat the carrots with a bit of fat

Having highlighted the many nutritional plus points that a simple serving of raw carrot can provide you with, let's move onto something that everybody is concerned about when they are finding out about foods, calories. How many calories are there in a carrot? Well even for a vegetable I can tell you that there are an incredibly low number of calories in carrots.

In the same size serving that we have mentioned above, 3.5 oz of raw carrot, there are just 41 calories, which is very low. This is another fantastic reason to include the carrot in your diet, as it is not going to harm your calorie in take at all.

Just to highlight the difference between the calories in raw carrot, and those when the carrot is boiled:

* In one 1 oz boiled carrot there are 10 calories

* In one 1 oz raw carrot there are 12 calories

As you can see there are slightly less calories in boiled carrot when going by exact weight. It is also an interesting fact that by boiling carrots you are making the nutrients in them more likely to be absorbed by your body. Find out more about carrot calories here.