Why Do Carrots Have Sugar? They Are So Yummy! – George and Samuel, 6, Virginia

Dear George and Samuel,

Roasted and soft. Raw and crunchy. Baked into a cake. I love eating all kinds of carrots. I asked my friend Tim Waters why those orange veggies are so tasty. He studies vegetable crops at Washington State University. He told me that we eat the carrot plant’s root. That’s where the plant stores all the sugar it makes during photosynthesis. “The sugars that carrots have are sucrose, glucose, and fructose,” Waters said. “They’re stored in the root as a source of energy for the plant while it’s growing.”

It turns out carrots are biennial plants. It takes two years for a carrot plant to go through its whole growth cycle. Let’s say you plant a carrot seed in the spring. It’ll sprout and grow

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