This may be more than you ever wanted to know but here it is anyway. It's all true. In fact these carrots went on the commercial market just this week. Here is an article from the Houston Chronicle:
www.chron.com...
Aggie-colored carrot debuting here
By NELSON ANTOSH Copyright 1998 Houston Chronicle

After nearly a decade of plant breeding work, the maroon-colored carrot from Texas A&M is making its debut this week in some Houston supermarkets. It is probably no coincidence that Houston has a large concentration of Aggies, although local Kroger spokesman Gary Huddleston said simply that "we jumped on it." The carrot started out as a novelty designed to honor the university's maroon and white colors. It was developed by Leonard Pike, the A&M plant breeder who developed the 1015Y sweet onion. The unlikely carrot began in 1989 when Pike noticed some carrots with a maroon tint in experimental plots of carrots. He thought it would be an ideal vegetable for Aggies with gardens. The color is an ancient trait that had been bred out by generations of farmers who believed carrots should be colored orange. This week, 25 of the Kroger Signature stores in the Houston metropolitan area will be selling the maroon carrot, which carries the brand name "BetaSweet." It will be featured in a Wednesday advertisement, with a 12-ounce bag for $1.25. So far, it appears the market goes beyond proud Aggies. "The problem is not having enough supply to meet the demand," said John Lackey, vice president of McManus Produce in Weslaco, the only commercial grower of the Aggie carrot up to this point. "We've got people from New York and Chicago calling. Everybody wants it, particularly gourmet chefs." After a couple of weeks the harvest will increase and shipments will go to Wal-Mart, H-E-B and Randall stores, Lackey said. Youngsters are expected to be a big part of the market. McManus Produce was encouraged by an impromptu test in a school in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. "We put some in a bowl and the kids went crazy over it," said Lackey. The carrot is eye-catching because only the outer portion is maroon-colored. The inner part is orange. Those being sold now are already sliced. There's a couple of reasons for that. Slicing shows off the contrasting colors, but it also prevents unauthorized production of the seed. If the carrots were whole, a gardener could stick them in the ground and they would sprout new tops and eventually make seed, Lackey said. For the food service industry, McManus could cut off the top by one inch and companies could still make carrot sticks or other tidbits, he said. These amputated carrots wouldn't grow if planted. The caution stems from the fact that variety is open-pollinated, which means seed could be saved much easier than if it were a hybrid, which would revert to its parents, he noted. Pike is still working to improve the variety and almost didn't consent to this year's crop, Lackey said. Reaching their goal of only selling purple carrots requires a lot of sorting. Upon harvest, about 10 percent of the crop is orange and another 10 percent is a light shade of maroon. These are removed by hand at the packing shed, Lackey said. Initially the maroon carrots will be coming from Texas fields near Mission, Donna and Weslaco. During the summer, the harvest will come from a high desert area in central Mexico, he said. This is the first of what promises to be a number of super vegetables out of A&M's Vegetable Improvement Center, Huddleston said. Backers of the maroon carrot say its benefits are more than skin deep. Pike has managed to incorporate a high level of beta carotene and anthocyanins, which have cancer-preventing properties. The maroon carrot also is claimed to be sweeter than normal, although Lackey has yet to do a chemical analysis on its sugar content. More can be found at these Aggie Web sites:
vic.tamu.edu...
vic.tamu.edu...
agnews.tamu.edu...

COLLEGE STATION — A maroon carrot first developed as a novelty for the school colors at Texas A&M University but later found to have superior health attributes has been named "Beta Sweet" in a contest that drew entries from across the country. "Beta Sweet has a pretty good ring to it. This carrot is a good source of beta carotene and it's sweet," said Dr. Leonard Pike, director of Texas A&M's Vegetable Improvement Center in announcing the winning name. About 400 names were submitted in the contest which started with a column in Progressive Farmer magazine last November. A "Name the Maroon Carrot" committee deliberated for about one hour on a list of about 40 names that had been narrowed by Pike. The three runners-up were Beta King, Sweet Beta and Texas SunSet. Beta Sweet was submitted by John Dunckelman of Clewiston, Fla. He will receive a collection of books from Progressive Farmer magazine, according to regional editor Karl Wolfshohl of Lubbock. Pike told the committee prior to the selection process that the name should reflect the healthful attributes of the carrot more than its ties to Texas A&M. "The original goal was to breed a maroon carrot that would be a novelty in the home garden of Aggies," Pike said. "But the goal changed as we were breeding for high beta carotene which has been found to prevent certain types of cancer. "It has gone beyond being a novelty, though there may be some of that, too," he said. "The popularity of the maroon carrot already just goes to show that flavor, health, nutrition and presentation are what's important to consumers in vegetables." The maroon carrot idea dates back to 1989 when Pike found some maroon-tinged carrots in his experimental plots of regular orange carrots. Pike now will pursue a patent for the newly named Beta Sweets. He expects at least two commercial vegetable companies to test market the carrots — as fresh sliced medallions in bags — by late December.