Does Eating Carrots Improve Your Vision?
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iStock/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — The myth that carrots improve your vision dates back to World War II. The British Royal Air Force developed a radar system that helped find German aircraft at night or in conditions of limited visibility.
To keep this system under wraps, they attributed it to the consumption of carrots by their airmen, even perpetuating a propaganda campaign touting carrots’ benefits to night vision.
And chew on this: while carrots do contain beta carotene, or vitamin A, which does indeed help your eyes and body in general, simply ingesting vitamin A will not improve your eyesight on a measurable level, experts said.
Dr. Milan Ranka, a pediatric ophthalmologist at New York University, gets to the root of the matter: “Although eating a bunch of carrots won’t make you a fighter pilot with 20/20 vision, they are part of a balanced diet that will keep your eyes healthy.”
Simply put, eating carrots won’t help you get rid of those corrective lenses.
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