Carrots; vegetable or fruit?

[zig_zag]

Well, I know they are of the root vegetable kingdom:p BUT, people so often tend to slide them to some middle zone, due to their sweetness. And I'm wondering, are they really THAT sweet? I am trying to incorporate more vegetables and stray away from excess fruits due to blood sugar level problems, but I love carrots and they are such an easy way to get in 'vegetables'... Should I be considering them a fruit, though?

[belleadonna]

Definitely not a fruit. It is a root veggie. A fruit by definition contains the seed in itself. For instance, cukes, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, squash are all non-sweet fruits. The others are obvious like peaches, watermelon, bananas, etc...
Sweetness has nothing to do with the classification of fruits. Your blood sugars should not be affected by sweet fruits if you are keeping your fat intakes low. In fact, it should level them out because fruit sugar passes in and out of your bloodstream quickly if not held up by fats.

[zig_zag]

Hahaha, I know, I know... I already aforementioned that I know it's a root vegetable:p However, I've heard countless times that people should avoid carrots if they have blood sugar problems, and that carrots will make you hungry as fruits do. Furthermore, for these reasons, people suggest using celery as a juice base as opposed to carrots. Fruits make me hungry... They'll bloat my stomach up a bit, but those hunger pangs and 'stomach dizzy feelings' will return slightly after eating them. Even more, so, actually.

[Bananna]

I think you're talking about carbs in general...fruit and carrots are both carbohydrate rich.

[belleadonna]

Fruits make you hungry because they are quickly digested. I just eat them all day long and have a great big salad at night. I do smoothies too.

[juliebove]

Definitely not a fruit. It is a root veggie. A fruit by definition contains the seed in itself. For instance, cukes, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, squash are all non-sweet fruits. The others are obvious like peaches, watermelon, bananas, etc...
Sweetness has nothing to do with the classification of fruits. Your blood sugars should not be affected by sweet fruits if you are keeping your fat intakes low. In fact, it should level them out because fruit sugar passes in and out of your bloodstream quickly if not held up by fats.

Totally untrue about the blood sugar if you have diabetes. Too many carbs, regardless of the source make for too high blood sugar. Some diabetics find they can not eat many carrots or other specific foods. Alas this is not the same for everybody so there is no hard and fast rule.

[pamparred]

My suggestion would be to incorporate them in your diet and see for yourself. Not everybody is the same. I have type II diabetes and surprisingly fruit on a raw diet does not affect my blood sugar. It actually drops. If however I eat them with a cooked diet it does cause my blood sugar to go haywire. In the end we can only do what is right for ourselves and we are all different. :) Thank goodness, think how boring life would be if we were all alike.

[belleadonna]

Like the post above says, everyone is different. But I know that when my husband was diagnosed with prostate cancer I started to give him 3 glasses of carrot juice a day. He is a diabetic. It did not affect his blood sugar at all!! I just kept his fats low. He is now cancer free, thank the Lord and he has been for 5 years. :)