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'Tear-Free' Onion in the Works
RedWolves2 writes "CNN has an article about how scientists in Japan may have discovered a way to make onions easy on the eyes without taking away from the taste. My grandfather always used to tell me to eat onions because it would put hair on my chest (oh how he was right). I wonder if this new 'tear-free' onion would work in the same way?"
Until we can buy these tearless onions, one tip (I've been told, I've never tried it) is that you can put a piece of bread in your mouth while you cut them. Or you could just gouge your eyes out of your sockets.
As far as getting rid of the hair on your chest caused by onions:
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Ok, so what's wrong with this world where people want to tear up their onions. And even if they do, SO WHAT! I say, let people tear 'em, rip 'em, shred 'em, even stomp on 'em if they want to. I mean, really!
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The Onion always make me laugh, not cry.
Get your stinking paws off me you damn dirty ape
This seems to me is a whole lot of effort and resources allocated on something quiet irrelavent.
There are already several well-known tricks that solve the onion slicing problem quiet well. Is it really neccessary to temper with onion's genetic makeup, and risk eating something that may have unforeseen effects?
Genetically alter a produce to increase production and solve femine, I can understand, but just to make tear-free onions?
PS:personally I go with a sharp knife for dicing onions. Works like a charm for me as long as I don't rub my eye while slicing them.
After you peel it, but before you cut it, you can rinse it off with water and that helps out quite a bit.
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My grandfather always used to tell me to eat onions because it would put hair on my chest (oh how he was right).
Fortunately, RedWolves2's bio clarifies that he is, in fact, a man.
May we never see th
Tear free onions are nice, but fart free beans would be the greatest invention since sliced bread! People would line up to buy those.
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Tear-free onion?
How about a heartless artichoke?
I'm not against Genetically altered food, if it offers something legititely _good, such as rice modified to have vitamin C or A, or what have you.
The only thing you have to worry about is that most companies selling GM seeds make the plants unable to pass the modification on to future generations of seeds. This can be a problem if good, freely available species of plants get diluted or lost, and later the GM seeds become unavailable. You should necissarily have to worry about using GM foods, but you should be aware of the practices of the companies you are buying such foods from. The food itself may be better, but the overall situation may not be in your best interests.
When fresh, most onions are already tear-free. Its only if you leave them sitting around for 3-4 days that they start to slowly decompose and produce the chemicals that cause tearing.
Perhaps a better solution would be to improve the terrible quality of packaging, distribution and inventory management of most retailers of onions so that consumers can get them fresh. This would obviously benefit almost all other produce as well.
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This works because the reason onions cause people to tear up is because of the sulphur content of the onion. The candle will burn up some of the sulphur, thus reducing the reaction. This doesn't always work, but it certainly helps.
There's already a low-sulphur type of onion (I forget the name - but it's a number that tells farmers when to plant it (the date)) - but it's hard to find (in fact, I've never actually SEEN it at a grocery store).
Most of the foods eat have been genetically manipulated the old fashioned way - Selective breeding.
Plants have been changed to have bigger yeilds that ripen at the same time. In some cases (such as corn) the differences between the domesticated version and the wild cousin is drastic. Plants also have been manipulated to remove genes that cause bitterness.
Animals have been changed to be larger, slower, dumber and to carry more meat on their frame.
The problem is that the words 'Genetically Modified' scares a lot of people (like the words 'Nuclear' and 'Radiation'). But there is a whole world of difference between transferring genes from two unrelated organisms and removing or enhancing the genes of a single organism.
I don't see anything wrong with enhancing already existing genes, or removing genes that provide undesirable traits in our food. What you find in the supermarket is different from what you'll find in the wild. Going back to the selective-breeding analogy, nobody has a problem with seedless grapes. There's not much of a difference between finding a random seedless mutation and making a seedless mutation.
Switching genes between organisms are another story. I don't have a problem with adding vitamins to plants that normally lack them. (Adding vitamin A to rice could reduce a lot of blindness, for example). Other cases need a closer look though.Then again, if you want to worry, probably massively dosing our livestock with antibiotics will hurt us more in the long run.
Just my 2 zorkmids,
Dasunt
i cut a lot of onions (?) every week and after a while you get used to it. the problem is that when you cut the part of the onion with the roots sticking out the onion releases a chemical that (i'm told) is converted to sulfuric acid in your eye. it's not a lot of acid but enough to burn. but somehow i have become immune to the stuff.
anyway, the best way to prevent crying when cutting onions is to refridgerate them before cutting -- i guess this keeps the nasty chemicals from being so volitile when you cut them.
if that doesn't work wear swim goggles.
fear is the mind killer