Carrots Don’t Actually Make Your Eyesight Better

You must have heard many times as a child that eating carrots would make your eyesight better, right? Well, prepare for some news that will absolutely rock your world. IT. WAS. ALL. A. LIE. Yes, we were shook too when we heard the news. Carrots don’t make your eyes better and your parents/teachers lied to you (well, not on purpose).

According to Buzzfeed, eating carrots has more to do with wartime propaganda than fixing your poor vision *cries in Spanish*. The British actually popularized the myth that carrots can improve your eyesight to throw off the Germans during World War II and it kind of got out of hand.

To prevent the Germans from executing their nighttime airstrikes, the British government issued nationwide blackouts to blind them — and developed a secret radar technology to help the Royal Air Force (RAF) spy on their enemies at night.

However, the British government obviously didn’t want anyone discovering and copying this new radar technology, so they launched a campaign that attributed their pilots’ newfound night vision to their high-carrot diets. The campaign urged citizens to eat carrots, too, so that they could see better during the blackouts (I’m screaming).

In fact, although there’s no conclusive evidence to show that the Germans believed the carrot myth (unlike our gullible parents) they did start feeding their troops extra carrots, just for good measure. Thanks, Buzzfeed, my childhood is officially ruined. What next? Eating greens doesn’t grow long ears and great big feet?