How Do You Cut an Onion Without Tears? Some Useful Tips

Onions are our common vegetables in our kitchen, thanks to its unique taste. Of course, this vegetable needs to be cleaned first. After cleaning and removing the outer shell, the onion should be cut. The cuts cause almost always tears. We give some tips how you can prevent this.

Why do we tear up when cutting an onion?
By cutting the onion, an ingredient that contains sulfur comes free. If this material comes in contact with water (our eyes), it creates sulfuric acid. This acid, irritates our eyes and the eyes become more moist.

Genetic modified onions prevent tearing
A Japanese team led by Shinsuke Imai of the House of Food Corporation, has localized the enzyme that produces propanthial S-oxide, which causes our eyes begin to tears when cutting onions. Thanks to this discovery it is perfectly possible for bring an onion on the market which causes no tears and which still has the same taste.

"zone name","placement name","placement id","code (direct link)" direct-link-296184,DirectLink_1,16414861,https://www.highperformancecpm.com/mb7kpxfk2?key=12bfe5b0c988f08c67ba61b426587fc0

Currently, such onions are widely available. But chefs are skeptic versus modified onions. They claim that traditional onions are just not replaceable in the kitchen and the tears just come along with it.

Some tips to prevent tears.

  • Always use a very sharp knife, thanks to a sharp knife, the cells of the onion are cut instead of “cracked” and the juices causing the tear do not come free.
  • In between, keep your knife under the tap while cutting: the liberated sulfur will first react with water from the tap and not your eyes.
  • Cut the onions under the hood: the sulfur is removed more quickly.
  • Use a food processor to cut the onions.
  • Cut the onions in a transparent plastic bag.

Finally we can report that many different types of onions release different sulfuric compounds. If you want to reduce tears, you can choose the onion type with less acid-like substance, without losing the real taste of onions!

Source by Johan Vandekerckhove