zlacker

True story : I was devastated to learn that eating carrots for enhancing night vision was a WWII British hoax to confuse the Germans.

I spent the better part of my teenage years eating raw carrots to be a better Ninja!

>>jmnico+(OP)
That's true! To be more specific, the British had just invented the ground interception radar to spot incoming aircraft, and didn't want the Germans to think they had developed a technological solution.

I don't know if they ever thought the myth would catch on as well as it did, but it's still widely believed today. (Perhaps because there's no downside, eating carrots is still good for you, it just doesn't improve your eyesight.)

>>jmnico+(OP)
> Decades later rumors swirled that the British Royal Air Force pushed that message as a cover-up for the recently adopted radar technology they were secretly relying on for their nighttime skirmishes.

> whilst the [British] Air Ministry were happy to go along with the story [of carrot-improved vision], they never set out to use it to fool the Germans.

> The German intelligence service were well aware of our ground-based radar installation and would not be surprised by the existence of radar in aircraft. In fact, the RAF were able to confirm the existence of German airborne radar simply by fitting commercial radios into a bomber and flying over France listening to the various radio frequencies!

Link: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-c...

I wasn't however able to find if there is any reason for the british to push such a message if it wasn't to confuse the germans.

>>LeoPan+K
Additionally, sugar was also heavily rationed, while carrots (which are quite high in sugars) IIRC weren't.

Carrot cake also had a surge in popularity at the time (if the great show "Supersizers eat..." is to believed).

>>ahmedf+01
> I wasn't however able to find if there is any reason for the british to push such a message if it wasn't to confuse the germans.

Could it have had something to do with rationing? Perhaps they were trying to increase carrot consumption.

>>messe+04
Yep, that's what I thought too, but had no way of confirming it.

It can also be that they wanted citizens to cultivate more of it in their home gardens for its nutritional values. But either way, I have no data to confirm it.

>>ThePad+l1
Huh. Didn't know. Proof http://www.carrotmuseum.co.uk/ww2carrots.html

>>jmnico+(OP)
You and me both! I mean, I like carrots, so I was eating them as a snack (my preferred method was to get a full carrot, eat around the core, and then eat the sweet core by itself), but I remember thinking whenever I got one "I wonder how much this will end up helping my vision" some day.

>>ahmedf+i6
Hell, it could have been a stupid reason. Maybe someone actually thought carrots improved vision; maybe someone just thought it was hilarious to make people thinks that; maybe someone needed another poster to make to meet quota and ran out of ideas; maybe someone had a bet on whether they could get a carrot campaign approved.

>>saalwe+1v
Actually carrots are good for your vision, but not your night vision.