Sweet and pulpy !  Drink Fresh Juice ! 

　Spring time is full of fun and I have been awaiting "spring carrots". Although the carrot is originally an autumn-and winter-season vegetable and spring carrot says what has been harvested in spring waiting for to be warm. The seeds are sown in the fall and the carrots can store plenty of the sweet-ness though the cold winter in the soil. The main production centers in Japan are in Nagasaki and Tokushima. Spring carrots are  characterized as softer, sweeter carrots than usual. Even a child who is turned off by the  raw smell of carrots may come to like them.

　Try them raw at first. Next try carrot sticks and try to eat them with just a little salt. Their sweetness is enhanced remarkably. If you squeeze them and make juice, you will be amazed. ‘ Is this only carrot, really?’. If you try to make salad by cutting them like ribbons at the peel, it looks pretty.　

　The orange color of is from β-carotene and it is said to be effective to keep healthy skin and mucous membranes. Carrots also the amount of change vitamin A in the body because they contain a large amount of the vitamin near the skin. It is good to cook them without peeling the skin .　

                                                                                  by Yukari Maruyama,

          　     Osaka Seika (Fruit and Vegetables) Planning Public Relations Office

　My mother often made me carrot cake in my young days. I remembered my mother and delicious, sweet carrot cake this season.