Vision Loss

I was never a fan of carrots as a child. This was most likely due to the fact that my stepmother refused to peel them, and the tough outer skin with its tiny hair-like offshoots and faintly dirt-infused flavor grossed me the heck out. Yet I ate them anyway, out of the deep-seated fear that, without a steady dose of carrots, I would never be able to see in the dark. Darkness, to me, was much more frightening than carrot skin.

Like many children, I was a victim of the government conspiracy surrounding carrots and night-vision. That’s right, I said, “government conspiracy.” The story goes that, in order to keep the newly developed radar technology a secret from German intelligence during World War II, the British government started telling the press that the reason their soldiers could see enemy planes coming was that they fed them a steady diet of carrots to improve night-vision. The story proved useful to parents, who found it an effective way to convince their children to eat the vegetable.

Like all myths, this one has a grain of truth at its core. Beta carotene, the substance that gives carrots their orange color, is converted to Vitamin A in the body. Vitamin A is responsible for development and maintenance of cells and tissues in the eyes and other organs. Vitamin A deficiency can cause blindness. However, eating plenty of carrots will not improve vision beyond normal levels, and it has no effect whatsoever on such conditions as myopia, hyperopia, and astigmatism.

So why don’t rabbits wear glasses? The answer is simple. Rabbit ears are too high to hold glasses in place.