Thursday, September 22, 2011

Today's fortune: September 22, 2011

Today's fortune: A carrot a day, may keep cancer away.

You know, when I'm eating my Chinese dinner and I open the fortune cookie afterwards, I really don't want to read about cancer. Or carrots, for that matter.

This is certainly a bizarre box of fortune cookies I'm into now. Fortune Boy has not failed to impress.

True, this fortune is bizarre, but that doesn't mean it's not true. A quick Internet search reveals that carrots really can help prevent cancer. Just check out this sentence from a 2005 Daily News Central article:

A natural pesticide found in carrots, falcarinol, may prevent the formation of cancerous tumors, according to new research published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Damn. Well, I'm on board. At least for a month.

On the way home from work today I stopped by a grocery store and I bought a 99-cent bag of full-size carrots. And from now through October 22, I'm going to eat a carrot per day. I'm not talking about a baby carrot, or the garnish on a salad, I'm talking about a full-on, whole Bugs Bunny-sized carrot.


In fact, I just finished my first one. And it was pretty gross.

I like the taste of carrots... as a garnish or in a soup or something. However, a whole raw carrot is not exactly a pleasing food, unless you're Bugs up there. But I choked it down with no repercussions. However, if the taste becomes overwhelming part of the way through the month, Jamie made a good suggestion: "The fortune didn't say anything to keep you from dipping it in ranch dressing." If it comes to that, fine, but for now I think a plain carrot is more in sticking with the spirit of the fortune.

Oh, and just so you don't think I'm putting too much stock in the healing power of carrots, I realize the whole "A ___ a day will keep ___ away" thing is a little overblown. In my two-minute Internet search this afternoon, I found references to tomatoes, milk, papayas, aspirin and, of course, apples, all of which are claimed to "keep cancer away" or "at bay."

But there's certainly no harm in eating a carrot a day. A whole carrot only has about 30 calories, and it also has lots of Vitamin A, Vitamin C, potassium, fiber and even calcium. And here's the kicker: when I came home from work I was hungry as hell in anticipation of dinner. But now, after downing my 30-calorie carrot... I'm not so hungry anymore.

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