Patient Asks If Carrots Really Improve Vision, Optometrist Explains WWII Propaganda for the Ninth Time Today

For the ninth time in a single clinical day, optometrist Dr. Rhodopsin Retinal found herself explaining the historical origins of the carrot-vision myth to a patient who asked, with genuine hope, 'Will eating more carrots fix my eyesight?' 'The patient was a minus-six myope with two diopters of astigmatism,' Dr. Retinal said. 'He asked if he could reduce his prescription by eating carrots. I told him that the carrot-vision connection is World War II-era British propaganda designed to explain why RAF pilots could shoot down German bombers at night — the real reason was radar, which was classified. He stared at me for about ten seconds and then said, but my grandmother swears by them.' The carrot myth, which originated in 1940 when the British Ministry of Information attributed fighter ace John 'Cat's Eyes' Cunningham's night combat success to a diet rich in carrots rather than the top-secret airborne interception radar his Beaufighter was equipped with, has persisted for over eighty years despite being, in Dr. Retinal's words, 'literal wartime disinformation that somehow became a dietary recommendation.' 'Carrots contain beta-carotene, which the body converts to vitamin A, which is essential for retinal function,' Dr. Retinal conceded. 'But vitamin A deficiency severe enough to affect vision is extremely rare in developed nations. Eating extra carrots when you're vitamin A-sufficient does nothing for your eyesight. Nothing. It just turns your skin slightly orange. Which is a real condition called carotenemia that I have also diagnosed, in a patient who was eating three pounds of carrots a week because she thought it would cure her presbyopia.' The patient who prompted this latest explanation has been prescribed spectacles and advised that 'carrots are a fine vegetable and you should eat them if you enjoy them, but they will not change your refractive error, which is determined by the axial length of your eyeball, a dimension that beta-carotene has absolutely no influence over.' He left the office carrying his new prescription and a bag of baby carrots, which he had brought 'just in case.'