Carrots in the color of Dutch Royal Family, House of Orange

Today I was reading an article on BBC news Scientists unveil 'supercarrot' saying that scientists in the US have created a genetically-engineered carrot that provides extra calcium. It was interesting until this line came into my eye:

The orange colour we know is the result of Dutch cultivation in the 17th Century, when patriotic growers turned a vegetable which was then purple into the colour of the national flag.

Isn't this amazing? I didn't know that carrot's orange color could also have anything to do with the Dutch. Then I did a search online. It turned out that carrot has a quite a long history.

The noble carrot has long been known as an orange vegetable thanks to patriotic Dutch growers who bred the vegetable to make it less bitter than the yellow varieties, and then it was adopted it as the Royal vegetable in honour of the House of Orange. Carrots were originally purple or red, with a thin root. The species did not turn orange until the 1500's when Dutch agricultural scientists and growers used a mutant yellow carrot seed from North Africa to develop a carrot in the colour of the House of Orange, the Dutch Royal Family. In an attempt to "nationalize" the country's favourite vegetable they began experiments on improving the pale yellow versions by cross breeding them with red varieties. These varieties contain beta carotene to produce orange-coloured roots This was developed to become the dominant species across the world - wonderful, sweet orange.

It is such an interesting finding to me. I remember carrots in my hometown used to be more yellowish and taste a little different. Now we consume quite a lot of carrot to make carrot juice every day, thanks to our Korean friend's healthy diet advice. I didn't know that I was in the birthplace of the orange carrot.

Another interesting finding reading the history of carrots is about the baby carrots. I have been wondering why US have so many baby carrots that I had never seen when I was in China. It was actually manufactured baby carrots. The process was invented in the late 1980's by Mike Yurosek, a California farmer, as a way of making use of carrots which are too twisted or knobbly for sale as full-size carrots. Yurosek was unhappy at having to discard as much as 400 tonnes of carrots a day because of their imperfections. He was able to find an industrial green bean cutter, which cut his carrots into 5 cm lengths, and by placing these lengths into an industrial potato peeler, he created the baby carrot. It turns out to be a great business success and today in the Disney World, burgers come two ways: either with fries or baby carrots. And 80% of carrots sales in US market are baby carrots, can you believe that?

Tata Nano - safe to drive in developing countries

I happen to see this picture about the new released Tata nano. It was a little shocked to see "Plastic and adhesive replaces welding"... o.o., how can this pass the crash test for safety?

Then I did a little more research, and found out, this is only for the model sold in developing countries, in which people won't drive that fast to cause fatal crash. That explains. It is too cheap to believe: $2500. The good news is, it meets European emmission standars. Although the environmental activists protested for the pollution concern since this would allow a lot more Indians to own a car, to look at the bright side of the picture, it at least shows the manufacturer's respect on today's 'global warming' concern.

This reminds me the yellow taxi that had served many years in many cities in China in 1990s. I do not know which company produced it, we call it 'Mian di ()', or 'Huang Chong (yellow bug)'. We used to love it, since 10 yuan can take six persons go 10 kilometers. It was also big enough and convenient for moving. Just in Beijing, there were 100,000 of them for a period of time. I know the safety was a big issue for this car, people told me it was just like four wheels + an engine + a cardboard box on top.

Before the end of 1998, all these kind of taxi were removed from the Beijing's street. There were no more 1 yuan per km taxi any more on the streets. The main reason was pollution rather than safety. It is true that when driving speed is not high, the possibility of fatal auto crash is limited. Tata is wise in making a green car.

When Tata unveiled its nano and attracted the world's attention, it is my best wish to see that Chinese auto companies some day would also stand up proudly to show the world a total made in China model. It seems that most Chinese auto companies are copy cat, good at reverse engineering. Look at all these facts:

1. In 2003, Toyota Motor Corp. sued Hangzhou-based Geely Group Co. for copying the Japanese company's logo and slapping it on Geely models. Toyota lost the case.
2. Honda Motor Co. won a ruling that bars Chongqing Lifan Industrial from selling motorcycles under the "Hongda" brand.
3. Honda is also suing Shuanghuan Automobile Co., saying the Chinese company's Laibao SRV is a copy of the Honda CR-V sport-utility vehicle.
4. GM Daewoo filed suit in a Shanghai court alleging that Chery Automobile Co. stole its trade secrets to make the QQ.
... ...

Some new information: India has 8 per cent of the world’s vehicle fatalities and less than 1 per cent of its cars, with more than 90,000 people killed on the country’s roads every year. Introducing a million Nanos into the mix may bring more – and unwelcome – headlines.

What I would like to see, is Tata can somehow invest on public transportation. When people are densely populated, it really make more sense to take buses or trains than drive your own cars. Who can push this to happen in both China and India?