1 yr. ago • 100%

"Carrot Tans" Are Trending on Tiktok. Here's What The Science Says.

www.sciencealert.com "Carrot Tans" Are Trending on Tiktok. Here's What The Science Says.

A beauty trend gaining popularity on TikTok, dubbed the "carrot tan", claims eating three carrots a day will give you a natural tan.

24 comments

If it’s trending on TikTok, it’s fucking stupid and probably dangerous. But we had a president that suggested we drink bleach, so I give up.

Fuck it.

53
- It's 3 carrots a day and the skin color is harmless (other than not actually protecting against UV but that's, like, not worse than not doing it) so it's actually quite positive. As long as they don't think they can suddenly skip sunscreen, ...
  
  22
- I actually had this happen to me as a little kid. I had to go to the hospital because they needed to check if I was jaundiced. Turned out it was just that my favorite foods are carrots and squash. Eating more vegetables isn't a bad thing.
  
  9
  
  That's both a yes and no. Veggies are good. Overindulgence is not.
  
  Carrots are quite heavy on sugar. Most "root fruits" are.
  
  It's a typical problem people run into when trying to loose weight via dieting.
  
  Edit: Three carrots a day shouldn't be a problem though.
  
  2
People are fucking stupid, but I guess it's good that they're eating vegetables.

40
Can they invent a few more of these kinds of Tik Tok trends?
The kind where they’re tricked into doing something healthy and harmless? I imagine an army of troll nutritionists thinking up new challenges :)

edited because Thelsim doesn’t proofread

23
- I think getting healthy and harmless trends from tiktok that make people stand out by making them glow orange is also a nice touch, that way it's easier to avoid people that fall for tiktok trends.
  
  6
Any extra beta-carotene is then either stored in the liver and fat tissue, excreted through poo, or removed via sweat glands in the outer layer of the skin. This is when the orange skin "tan" can happen. In medicine, this is called carotenoderma.

Carotenoderma gives your skin a yellow/orange pigment that is not the same colour you'd turn from a sun tan. It is concentrated in the palms of the hands, the soles of the feet and smile lines near the nose.

21
This is harmless and goofy, but it goes to show how easily something so stupid can take hold and enter the conversation.

10
Nobody tell them that carrots are good for their eyes.

10
- Because everyone knows about onboard radar now...
  
  11
  
  Well, they can't give you superhuman night vision, but a shortage of vitamin A is actually bad for your eyes, and carrots are a good source of it.
  
  3
Wait... does that mean, Trump has been an ad for Big Carrot all this time!? /s

10
Smh some people never watched the magic school bus and it shows

8
I remember there was a Magic School Bus episode when I was a kid about how eating too many carrots would turn your skin orange. Never occurred to me that that's also the color used for fake tans

8
experts suggest you would need to eat at least ten carrots per day, for at least a few weeks, for colour changes to occur. Most people would find this carrot intake challenging.

Yeah, I'd say so. One carrot is already an almost insurmountable challenge to me 🤢

7
- 10 carrots is something like 1.5-2 pounds/0.75-1 kg. I can eat a good bit of carrot-ginger soup, but a quart of soup every day for weeks? I think I'd have other health effects before I started glowing orange.
  
  5
  
  I'm actually surprised it takes so much, because where does that orange tan story comes from?
  
  I've heard it way before the tiktok fad, and it seems to have a base in science, but were there really people who ate that much carotene?
  
  2
According to the experience of a friend, eating 1kg carrots a day makes your skin go slightly orange. You'll likely notice only in places where the skin is thin and white. For example around your knuckles when you form your hand into a fist.

4

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