Is Carrot Good for Digestive System?

Vegetables such as carrots are recommended to eat everyday because they contain vitamins and minerals that are good for overall health.

Keeping a healthy digestive system increases your vitamins and mineral intake and ensures you have regular, and easy bowel movements.

Below is a summary of whether carrots are good for the digestive system.

Some foods like spicy foods, fried foods, and sugary foods are more likely to cause digestive issues than others.

In this article, I will cover whether carrots cause digestive problems if it’s possible to eat too many carrots and if there are any side effects to eating too many carrots.

Can Carrots Cause Digestive Problems?

Although carrots are healthy for you because of the nutrients they contain, some people get digestive issues from certain types of foods.

Some foods are also more prone to cause digestive problems than others.

So, here’s whether it’s possible for carrots to cause digestive problems.

If you notice you have digestive issues when you eat carrots it’s very likely you have an intolerance to carrots.

Many people have an intolerance to certain foods such as potatoes, tomatoes, and onions.

This is different from being allergic to food such as nuts, or soy.

Being allergic to foods can have symptoms that are life-threatening such as swelling of the throat, which can make it difficult to breathe.

Whereas, having an intolerance produces discomfort. Such as bloating, and gas.

Some people also get instant diarrhea or begin vomiting when they have an intolerance to food such as carrots.

What to do if you have carrot intolerance?

If you eat carrots with the skin on them, try peeling them first.

Or, if you eat carrots peeled, try leaving the skin on.

The different areas of a carrot are higher and lower in each of the different vitamins and minerals which can cause a reaction.

I put together a table that shows the different areas of a carrot – the skin, middle, and core, and which vitamins and minerals are more concentrated in each.

You can see this info in this article about whether you can eat carrot skin.

Various people that have food intolerance state that they are fine as long they don’t eat the food that’s causing an issue raw.

So, try cooking carrots, or cooking them in a different way than you normally eat them.

For example, if you typically fry carrots see if you have the same negative reaction with boiled carrots.

The effects of carrot juice on the digestive system

Juiced fruits and vegetables contain on average 90% of the vitamin and minerals in the original fruit or vegetables.

The main difference is they contain next to none of the fiber.

Fiber is responsible for the positive digestive impact that carrots provide.

Therefore, carrot juice isn’t good for your digestive system – or any other fruit or vegetable juice – as eating carrots raw or cooked.

However, because carrot juice still contains most of the vitamins and minerals it’s very healthy to drink.

How the fiber in carrots compares to other fruits and vegetables?

Carrots contain a good amount of fiber.

But, interestingly they contain about an average amount of fiber compared to other fruits and vegetables.

Here’s how they compare the foods that contain the most fiber:

• Popcorn – 6.5x the fiber in carrots
• Beans – 4.5x the fiber in carrots
• Whole grains – 3.5x the fiber in carrots
• Avocados – 2.5x the fiber in carrots
• Broccoli – 1.5x the fiber in carrots
• Berries – 1.25x the fiber in carrots

*source: USDA.

Therefore, if you’re experiencing a digestive issue – which can be solved by consuming more fiber – such as bloating, or constipation, then carrots aren’t your best option.

But, they are still very good.

And contain a medium amount of fiber compared to virtually all other foods.

There are some ways to improve your digestive health using prebiotic superfoods according to doctor Steven Gundry, here’s a video where he explains it:

It’s common wisdom that eating a wide range of foods is good for your health.

Therefore, eating at least some carrots in a typical week or a small portion everyday is a good idea.

Certain foods need to be peeled or cooked otherwise they have side effects, but are there any side effects to eating carrots?

The same is also true if you consume carrot juice.

It takes about 10 average-sized carrots to make one cup of carrot juice.

Therefore, you should aim to consume less than 1 to 1.5 cups of carrot juice per day.

On a typical day, a healthy diet consists of many different types of foods.

Different foods can also be high in these amounts of carrots.

So, I’ve adjusted how many carrots you should eat in a day to allow for other foods that a person should eat.

Consuming too much of one food, especially for a long amount of time is known to be bad for you.

It will give you high amounts of some nutrients but not enough for others.

If you really like carrots or carrot juice you might eat a lot of them, so here’s what the side effects are of eating too many carrots, and how much carrot is too much.

Carrots are high in particular nutrients.

And consuming too much carrot or carrot juice will cause you to exceed the recommended daily intake.

This isn’t of concern for all nutrients that carrots are high in. But, for others it is.

Here are the nutrients that can cause side effects if you consume too much of them:

• Vitamin C – acute and long term effects
• Manganese – acute and long term effects
• Potassium – long term effects

Here’s a table that shows the acute and long term effects where applicable for each of the nutrients that are found in high amounts in carrots:

Long-term effects are those that occur if you consume more than the recommended daily intake consistently over an extended period such as a few weeks, to months or more.

Carrots turning your skin orange – if it happens

Carrots are high in vitamin A.

This is very beneficial for your skin.

But, you may have heard that carrots can turn your skin green.

According to dermatologists, this can happen.

But, it’s quite rare.

It will generally only occur if you have a preexisting condition, or if you consume only carrots for most of the day (source).

As your body processes the nutrients in carrots that cause your skin to turn orange, it will go away on its own.