What pigments might you find in a carrot plant?

Answer 1

Practically any plant contains many kinds of pigments, and so do carrots. The main pigments you will find in the leaves, and they include some kinds of chlorophyll, some kinds of carotenes and some kinds of xanthophylls (which are largely yellow and orange pigments that are not important in nutrition).

If you are talking about the main colours found in carrot roots, then probably the name you want to know is carotenes. There are some other pigments as well, depending on the kind of carrot and the conditions under which it grew, for example you might find some carrots are practically purple or have a purple patch around the top where the leaves come out.

However, the main orange colour of the carrot root is a mix of carotenes. Of these, probably the most important from the point of view of one's diet is the one called beta carotene; your body breaks it down into vitamin A. Other carotenes either do not produce proper vitamin A, or produce half and half vitamin A and other compounds of little nutritional importance.

Although leaves look green rather than orange, they do also contain carotenes. It is just that the chlorophylls in the leaves are more intensely coloured and mask the orange colour. Carotenes do affect leaf colour however; pure chlorophylls tend to have a blueish green colour and the orange of the carotenes give an overall leaf-green shade. In fact, carotenes are commercially important both for food colouring and for producing vitamins, and most of the carotenes are extracted from leaves because they are the cheapest.