Why do you cry when you cut onions? There are 5 ways to avoid tears

Cutting onions and not crying is the dream of everyone who has to prepare many dishes with the addition of this vegetable. And it is quite feasible, because there are many ways to neutralize the “tear gas” emitted by onions.

Why does onion make us cry?

As strange as it may sound, onions do not want to be eaten. Therefore, it protects itself as best it can, spraying special toxic substances called lachrymators along with the juice. Trying to chop onions for salad or borscht, we are essentially experiencing a small local war with tear gas.

The fact is that in the process of evolution, all plants acquire the abilities they need to survive. Including the ability to scare away enemies who are constantly trying to crunch on the juicy greens. Someone is trying to disguise themselves as an inedible object - for example, a stone, as Lithops does. Someone signals with their smell: don’t eat me, I’m tasteless (for example, wormwood). And someone else, like an onion, when it is cut or bitten, attacks the enemy with toxic substances, trying to cause unpleasant sensations.

How to chop onions without crying?

The volatile substance contained in onions is called thiopropanol-S-oxide. Its chemical formula is C3H6SO. When it gets into our eyes and interacts with moisture, it disintegrates, releasing sulfuric acid. Its amount is negligible and does not harm health, but the mucous membrane experiences irritation. This is the reason why we cry while chopping onions.

Breeders have developed several onion varieties with minimal thiopropanol-S-oxide content. But they have not yet become popular and have not been introduced into mass culture, so we can only come up with more and more new ways to protect ourselves from “onion attacks.”

We use glasses

You can find special anti-onion glasses on the Aliexpress website. Their price ranges from one and a half to three dollars, and the design is very similar to a swimming mask. A seal made of sponge is attached to the frame on the inside. It tightly adheres to the skin on all sides, preventing lachrymators from penetrating into the eyes.

If desired, such glasses can be made with your own hands from foam rubber, unnecessary sunglasses and hot-melt adhesive.

Traditional methods

Anti-onion glasses were invented only a few years ago, but people have had to peel and cut this vegetable for a long time. Therefore, our mothers and grandmothers have always looked for a way to protect themselves from tear substances using available means.

Here are some simple solutions, how to peel onions, popular among chefs:

• To avoid crying when cutting an onion, you need to rinse the peeled onion in cold running water. The excess juice will go away, and much less lachrymator will get into your eyes. It is also worth periodically rinsing the knife with water.
• At high temperatures, thiopropanol-S-oxide decomposes most actively, and in the cold it loses its tear properties. Therefore, a frozen or at least chilled onion does not make a person cry. True, you shouldn’t leave this vegetable in the refrigerator for a long time, much less in the freezer: from the cold, onions lose their attractive appearance, become translucent and a little slimy.
• You can also place a lit candle next to the onion - since the lachrymator is in a gaseous state, it will burn out before it gets into your eyes.

When you cry from onions, you need to close your eyes and apply a cold metal spoon to your eyelids. The cold will reduce irritation and tears will not roll down.

In addition to the eye-irritating gas, onions contain many vitamins and other useful substances, so you should not eliminate them from your diet. Moreover, now you know what to do so that this vegetable does not make you cry.