[catone]

Brilliant! And fitting, since baby carrots are already the sort of "junk food of the carrot world." At least, insofar as that they're the lazy alternative to buying and cutting your own damn carrots.

(Baby carrots are just big carrots that have been pre-cut and marked way up. Info here: http://www.wisebread.com/baby-carrots-the-frugal-idea-that-i... ... which also brings to mind the semi-related issue of America's aversion to non-"perfect" produce. That's one of the reasons small, local producers have a hard time selling to big grocery chains -- they can't afford to cull their produce of the "ugly" carrots, tomatoes, peppers, etc.)

[megablast]

This aversion to ugly fruit and veg invaded UK and Australia year ago as well. So now, when you go to a supermarket, you will have beautiful tastless food, whereas when you go to Spain or Italy, you have ugly delicious fruit and veg.

[kentosi]

I totally agree. I live in Australia, and I didn't realise this until I went to India a little while ago.

The fruit there seemed smaller, but far, FAR more tastier.

So it's not just the looks, but also the size that seems to matter in Australian supermarkets.

[chadmalik]

We're ridiculous sometimes. I was at the farmers market and wanted some strawberries. I noticed none at the stand but the vendor had some stacked on a table behind her. Why weren't those being sold? She said she'd forgot to wash them off and customers don't like fruit with dirt on it.