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Comment by jsunderland323 | Hacker News Reader

Damn. My mom told me carrots would improve my eyesight when I was little and I've lived with this my whole life. This article ruined my sense of accomplishment after eating carrots but I loved it.

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How interesting - I remember being told this as a child too! Now I know its origin. Where are your parents from? My family is British, but I am curious to know whether the British propaganda had any impact on German culture too, and also whether it was exploiting a pre-existing belief that consuming carrots improved vision.

My mother is American. Her parents met during ww2 in Brazil, where my grandfather was stationed. So maybe it was a lie that permeated those involved with the war at the time. I accused her of spreading fake news this morning after reading this and she couldn’t recall where she had heard it.

I just asked my wife, who is from Hong Kong, if she had heard this as a child and she said she had not. Her grandparents were really young during the war and Brits and Cantonese were pretty segregated until after ww2, so it might make sense that this didn’t reach her family.

As a German, I can at least say that the propaganda worked here, as intended :)

Good lies have some basis in truth. Vitamin A deficiency will damage eyesight, and carrots have a lot of vitamin A so they'll prevent deficiency. So your mom wasn't totally off.

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