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Asked by bakerkj01 to Liz, Jim on 15 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by superscope98.
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Jim Caryl answered on 14 Jun 2011:
Whilst carrots do contain vitamins that are involved with eye health, such as retinol (Vitamin A), the idea that they can improve sight (and being able to see in the dark) in the manner that people think is actually something of a myth.
The way I have heard, during wartime Britain (1939-1945) carrots were the most abundant vegetable, so they became a rather common (and perhaps rather boring) component of many meals. During the war cities would operate a ‘black out’ so that they couldn’t be targeted by German bombers. Obviously, this made it a little difficult to see when walking around, but the belief that you could see better in the ‘black-outs’ by eating carrots made people feel better about eating all those carrots.
The myth was supposedly started by air gunners whose job it was to shoot down enemy planes, and the Air Ministry and RAF pilots were only too happy to let the German bombers think that the reason we were hitting more of their planes was because our British pilots and gunners were eating more carrots, and that we could therefore see better in the dark. In actual fact, the Air Ministry just didn’t want the Germans to know that scientists had actually developed a detection technique called ‘radar’, so we could detect the planes coming. RAF pilots also used red lighting in their planes, which doesn’t effect your night vision.
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Lizzard O'Day answered on 15 Jun 2011:
They don’t necessarily make you see better but for some people they can help them see better in the dark. The chemistry of it is as such: To see our body needs vitamin A but we can’t make– so we need to get it from our diet and carrots contain carotene a precursor that our body can use to make Vitamin A. So they don’t really make you see better but a lack of vitamin A deficiency can lead to night blindness- so eat your carrots!
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