The Carrot Eyewash

How does it feel when one of the great near-gospel truths of your childhood is ripped apart?
'Devastated' doesn't even begin to cover it, right? Imagine how I felt when the papers published the secret behind one of the most strongly held beliefs of our childhood ... carrots are great for the eyes. Well, you can stop feeding Junior the orange stuff.

Apparently it was all a big eye-wash carefully crafted during the World War. The British had set up a chain of radar stations along the coast and didn't want the Germans to find out how they were detecting so many of the enemy planes. So they concocted this great myth of how they were feeding their men carrots to improve their sight! All the better to see you with ...

Now how much of this is truth and how much is just the stuff of urban legend, I don't even want to begin to guess. But it led to generations of mothers forcing the kiddies to "eat up! it's good for your eyes ".
In short, carrots are only good for dangling before a donkey, according to this new version of an old story. If true, we really have been the donkeys, haven't we?

I just hope that at least the part about spinach and iron is true. I'd hate to think I shovelled in tons of the green gunk for nothing !