I understand there is a chemical reaction that happens between long shreds of rinsed carrots, salt, vinegar and olive oil that can help heal the gut.
Eating carrot sticks or carrot bullets are NOT the same thing.
You want to eat the carrot peelings SALAD, raw only, organic, prepared ahead.
The serving size for one person is of peelings from one small to medium raw carrot, or a fluffed-cup or two of peeling ribbons (you are looking for the long shreds of carrot, NOT chopped).
You can either use a potato peeler to create long curls of carrots, or one of those sliding vegetable mandarins to make the long peels. I like the peeler because the carrot ribbons are thinner.
You want this serving size eaten once per day PREPARED as tossed with a few sprinkles of organic apple cider vinegar, several pinches of powdered sea salt and a TBLE of very high quality organic (or tested glyphosate free) olive oil .
If you have not been consuming raw carrots WORK UP TO THE RECOMMENDED AMOUNT.
If you have IBS or other gut problems, ALWAYS RINSE until clear the carrot peelings after peeling them. The orange carotene “juice” can accumulate in the body, is highly irritating to the intestines for many people, and should not be consumed ever!
“The carotene can accumulate and disrupt hormones”—Ray Peat.
Start with a 1/2 cup of the carrot shavings salad for a few days in row and add a bit more every day until you work up to about a fluffy cup or two of carrot peelings/shavings in your bowl.
Let me say again: EATING RAW CARROTS ALONE AS “sticks”, or “carrot bullets” is NOT THE SAME. There is a chemical reaction between all the ingredients that can help the gut.
The carrot salad (as prepared) I understand helps to eliminate excess estrogen (same for men and women) and other toxins. It begins to clear up gut endotoxins that are often already circulating beyond the gut and throughout the body. These body toxins are often caused by eating toxic foods and being exposed to all kinds of environmental poisons.
Some have even discovered that consuming this carrot salad prepared and as suggested, over time, begins to even support a “missing” gut biome that is otherwise damaged in the process of living toxically.
Some have been born with a missing gut biome because they were born by cesarean section and missed the gut being correctly populated by the mother’s birth canal. (Do NOT use probiotics to solve this, many people make it worse using probiotics in any form as it forms the harmful type of lactic acid in the body). There are those born this way that have found more success using this carrot salad.
Over time, the carrot salad for many people will begin to act like a probiotic supplement or fermented food without using an actually poisonous and difficult to digest probiotic supplement that creates immune damaging lactic acid imbalance and excess.
Regularly eating this carrot salad often helps regulate bowel movements.
This can be made up a week ahead and stored in the refrigerator for a week (WITHOUT the salt/vinegar/oil) in glass jars (once you put on the salt, vinegar and oil, the salad should be eaten soon as it gets wilted).
Per serving:
Buy organic “Bunch Carrots” (or “loose table carrots” will also work but are less flavorful) — don’t get any others. Even organic, pre-peeled might be rinsed with citric acid (like carrot “bullets” rinsed in citric acid to keep them from browning).
And you definitely DO NOT want “juice carrots”. Because as I quoted Peat above, the carotene accumulates in the body and causes hormone disruption, it’s also more on the dangerous side to regularly drink carrot juice.
I very much dislike the “Cal-Organics” brand as they do genetic engineering under the guise of “hybrid” and their carrots have “too much orange carotene” in them. BunnyLuv is also NOT my favorite, but would do.
We are in short supply of quality food everywhere, so do the best you can. If all you have is not organic, grown in your backyard, go for them!
Use latex-free “exam gloves” (nitrile or vinyl) from the drugstore to save hands and nails from getting stained if you decide to make this salad daily, or in a big batch weekly.
Use 1 small-to-small/medium organic carrot, scrub wash under water, cut off the top and tip and slightly peel off the outer “soiled” skin layer and discard those peelings (the outer skin turns black-ish after peeling it off).
The rest of the carrot will remain bright orange after peeling and storing in the fridge for the week.
Use a potato peeler and on a cutting board, peel and peel and peel the carrot into a stack of ribbons until you can’t hold the carrot end to peel any more peelings.
Use a light hand so the peelings ribbons are as thin as possible.
Dump into a mesh strainer and rinse and rinse under cold water until all the orange carotene is rinsed down the drain.
I understand the carotene can accumulate and disrupt hormones and be highly irritating to the intestines. It is NOT a good source of Vitamin A (which should never be taken as a supplement).
NOTE: Vitamin A: Very important to regularly get from milk, eggs and liver. It remedies a number of ailments, including skin problems. Risky when ingested as a supplement, but if needed in addition to getting it from the food, use it topically on the skin (like the face or chest) by mixing the “palmitate” variety with a slight amount of coconut oil, applying, letting it absorb for awhile, and then washing it off. – Ray Peat.
I further splash a bit of distilled water on the top of the peelings in the strainer, flip the bunch over and splash a bit more of distilled water. I find the peelings store crisper for a bit longer after washing off a bit more of the minerals coming out of tap water.
Dump the stack of rinsed carrot ribbons onto a clean kitchen towel and squeeze “dry” a bit.
Put the peelings in a glass jar and store in the fridge until ready to eat. When properly prepared this way, I have found the prepared peelings last more than a week.
A few minutes before eating: toss some salt into the ribbons, toss around in the bowl a bit to mix up the salt (I like to use powdered salt that I powdered up in a blender) and then put a few sprinkles of apple cider vinegar (or I use organic rice vinegar (less tart)) and olive oil and toss it all with a fork.
I like to let the finished prepared “salad” sit for a couple of minutes and then eat.
This carrot peeling salad can be eaten daily long-long-long term.
I believe it helps regulate the colon and clear out toxins in the colon (like endotoxins and excess estrogen hormones) and helps stabilize blood sugar dips.
Fresh olive oil (buy high quality, organic and/or tested glyphosate free) is anti-inflammatory.
Most people have found regularly eating this salad stabilizes gut bacteria and acts like a probiotic without the allergies and other toxins associated with off-the-shelf probiotics.
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