Carrots & People: What Really Matters?

By Andrea Yoder

Andrea motoring around the cooler!

Waste…it’s hard to face, for some, yet in my day to day work it is inevitable.  Yes, I’m the one scrounging through the bin of vegetable waste and trimmings on the wash line trying to save every last vegetable with thoughts like these rolling through my mind:  Why are there so many carrots being discarded?  These look just fine!  This crew is being too picky….and then I pick them up and realize the crew is doing just fine.  The vegetable may look fine on one side, but was discarded because maybe it had a split, a small bad spot, was shaped funny, maybe slightly discolored, too short, too fat…the list goes on.  Throughout the year, but especially during fall/winter root crop season, my days are filled with tracking inventories—How many bins of carrots do we have?  How many more do we estimate we’ll be able to harvest?  Where will we store them?  How many do we need to reserve for CSA boxes?  Who will buy the extras?  Do we have enough or do we need more?  Along with tracking inventories, I do a lot of forecasting, anticipating what we’ll need for CSA boxes, reading the minds of our buyers to anticipate the items and quantities they might buy between October and the end of December.  Of course, in the midst of inventories, forecasting, packing CSA and wholesale boxes, I’m tracking yields.  This lot of carrots is only yielding 500# per bin instead of the usual 650#....why is that?  Wet harvest day and we brought in a lot of mud?  Too many forked carrots that have to be discarded?  Too many splits? 

Bin of 'funny' carrots.

Earlier this week as I was motoring around the cooler on my forklift pulling bins for the crews to wash, carrots was the subject matter that laid heavy on my mind occupying my brain space.  The pallet of ‘funny carrots’ (the name we lovingly give to odd-shaped carrots) is getting pretty big.  Where are they going?  Will I ever find a buyer for them?  We’re generating more than the food pantry can take, perhaps I should just compost them.  But they’re good carrots!!!  They’re sweet, delicious, and well—they’re interesting and have character!  In the course of washing tons (literally) of carrots, we have to face the sobering fact that they are not all perfect.  Despite the fact that they are perfectly wholesome, delicious, sweet carrots, they are considered of lesser quality and value in the marketplace!  I can’t say I like this reality, but it’s not a bias I can change singlehandedly.  Of course, our goal is to maximize yields and get a favorable return on the crop.  But what do you do when no one wants these less than perfect carrots?  Are they truly worthless?  Who decided the “perfect” carrot is long & straight?

You know, carrots and people have more in common than any of us may ever have taken the time to reflect on.  Carrots, just like people, come in a rainbow of colors…yes, there are more colors of carrots than just orange.  We grow beautiful bright orange carrots, but we also grow some stunning dark purple varieties as well as bright, golden yellow carrots, red carrots and even white carrots!  Carrot seed is produced all around the world, with some seed coming from Oregon state in the US while other seed is produced in France and even South Africa to name just a few locations.  But when someone looks at a carrot or takes a bite of it, does it really matter where that carrot came from originally or what color it is?  I might choose to use purple carrots for roasting and orange carrots to make a soup because these are the preparations where each color will shine the most, but aside from that the color of the carrot doesn’t matter as long as it’s a delicious tasting carrot!   

In the vegetable industry, there is a classification system for sorting vegetables.  Straight carrots are sorted as “number 1,” carrots that are slightly less than perfect end up labeled as “number 2,” really crazy looking carrots are called “number 3,” etc and with each class ranking the value of the carrot decreases.  The reality is that every crop of carrots is different and the perfect, straight, number 1 carrots may only be a small percentage of some crops.  Of course these perfect carrots are what every buyer and customer wants, they’re obviously more desirable and more valuable…is that true?  And those less than perfect carrots that are left behind?  What are we supposed to do with all of those?  Does an imperfection in the shape of how a carrot grew make the carrot bitter or somehow inedible?  In my experience these carrots taste just as good as the straight ones, we just haven’t grown to the point as a society where we can willingly accept and embrace their uniqueness.  Yet every carrot has a purpose and in the hands of the right person, that carrot can realize its purpose. 

'Funny' Shaped vegetaables are beautiful in their own way!

As with carrots, so with people.  We’re not all “perfect,” but we all have purpose and value.  Is it fair to toss aside those people/carrots that aren’t perfect and deem them “less valuable” than the others?  Perhaps they require a little more care and attention to trim them up and make them usable, but if you make a pot of delicious carrot soup, when its done you won’t know if it was made from a straight, perfect carrot or a funny shaped carrot.  If it was a good tasting carrot, that is the characteristic that will leave the lasting impact.  Those funny shaped carrots demonstrate the harsh realities of life in a field.  Sometimes you hit a rock or a hard spot in life that might set you back.  You can give up, wither and fade away, or you can push through and overcome the obstacle.  In the case of a carrot with a funny shape, that doesn’t represent an inferior carrot, the shape demonstrates the fact that this is a carrot that came up against adversity and continued to push through, determined to grow and make something of itself.  Carrots can’t get up and choose to relocate to a different field.  They have to do the best they can with what they have.  This year our carrots had some trying times---first it was too dry, then it was too wet.  Yes, all these life events played a role in shaping their final outcome, just as we too are shaped by our life experiences.  Just because we may look or seem a little different than someone else doesn’t mean we’re less valuable.  Yes, funny carrots require a little more time and attention to trim and clean them, but on the inside they are still sweet and delicious!  Funny and broken carrots that might be tossed to the side, discarded and ignored, may be the most valuable carrots to some.  A farmer might snatch them up…. “Hey I’ll take these.  They’ll be a great source of nutrition for my animals.”  Or another farmer might want them to work into his compost pile to create compost to put on the field to feed another year’s crop.  A chef might spot them and say, “Oh, let me toss these in my stockpot.  They’ll add depth of flavor and a special sweetness to this stock!” 

And so it is with people.  We all have our own purpose in life and while some may seem to have a more glorious purpose than others, at the end of the day it takes all of us to make this world work.    Let us not be too quick to judge, but rather lets embrace the diversity and uniqueness of each person/carrot while focusing on the positive qualities that really matter, offering a little extra time and patience to work with them, and allowing them to become the something beautiful, sweet and valuable that they were meant to be.

No, I never really thought a carrot could teach me anything about life, but there are some important parallels we can embrace.  With open minds, hearts and appetites, I hope we can all move forward into this season of Thanksgiving and a new year with a heart of gratitude and acceptance for all the people of this world and all the carrots of the fields.  Happy Thanksgiving.