This edition of Useless Knowledge is about how World War II propaganda created a myth that many people still believe today. This myth: eating carrots will improve your eyesight.

While it is true that carrots can help improve your eye health due to their high Vitamin A content, they will not help improve your eyesight unless you are deficient in Vitamin A and have diminished eyesight because of the deficiency. So using this knowledge, the British turned this to their advantage to create a myth to cover up for their invention of the on-board Airborne Interception Radar. This was very important for them, as the German Luftwaffe tended to do their bombing under the cover of darkness. The new radar system could locate the enemy planes before they reached the English Channel and allow the planes to be shot down before they could reach their targets.

Since this made the Royal Air Force (RAF) successful at shooting down enemy bombers at night, they started to publish the reason for their success in the papers as being that the pilots ate an excess of carrots, which made them able to see better at night. Because it was published in the papers, the myth was fed to the general public as well as to the enemy. Obviously, it really took root as many people still believe this and repeat it today.

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imagine not having night vision goggles today, our carrot supply would be ruined.

Well I'll be darned. My mom always told me growing up that carrots would help eyesight! Everything is a lie!!!