person s chopping onion
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We cry when we want to and when we don’t, especially when cutting the notorious onion.

Should we blame the onions?

Why not?

Onions are out to get anyone who tries to get them first!

Never discount the onions’ self-defense to inflict pain and make you cry again and again.

Onions have no label warnings, but perhaps they should.

The warning should read:

Beware when pealing, biting, or cutting.

Bite, peal, or cut at your own risk.

Use proper eyewear; your eyes will thank you.

Tearjerker, handle with care.

Sure, onions are great for seasoning foods, are delicious on burgers, and make great onion rings.

I am being honest; I have never cut a good onion that did not retaliate and spit in my eyes. And do not forget the released vapors or gases are as potent and painful as the spittle.

Fully clothed in their scaly skin, onions are as harmless as apples. Onions become formidable and revengeful adversaries if you dice, chop, slice, or attack them in any other knife-welding manner. Even the sharpest knife or blade can release onion juices into the air. Straight away, the air-borne molecules attack one’s exposed and vulnerable eyes.

Rub your eyes if you will or may or keep your eyelids ajar; a tide of tears will flow.

What opened the spigot to the water flow?

You’ve been hit by!

Boom! Boom.!

You’ve been hit by!

Doom!

A Smooth Chemical.

The gas or chemical is sulfur-oxide. The sulfur-oxide reacts with our basal tears and produces sulfuric acid.

It feels like something foreign is in your eyes, right?

Yep! It is sulfuric acid.

Yes, the mutilation of onions produces sulfuric oxides. The onion’s defense mechanism is lacrimatory or can cause one to cry and tears to flow. The lacrimal glands produce tears.

This defies the age-old assumption that the smell of onions is the irritant or source of eye torture.

Why the multitude of tears?

The brain activates the tear glands to protect the eye, wash the chemicals out, and stop the stinging.

No one has tamed this vegetable to avoid the sulfur oxides that spew when cutting into the onion’s flesh.

I chopped an onion the other day and avoided the pain and lacrimatory effect by holding the onion away from my body while cutting.

Whew, it was close! A few more moments, it would have been crying time.

Are you tired of letting onions pick on you and make you cry?

Are you tired of being a sore-eyed loser?

Want to get under the onions’ skin without it laying into you?

Who is the brain of this operation, the onion or the perpetrator?

Try one of the following ways to cut onions and diminish or prevent the release of sulfur oxides.

Freeze the onions before attacking them with a knife.

Place a slice of bread between your teeth to capture most of the vapors or gas while cutting onions.

Cut onions under running water or in a bowl filled with water. Be careful to avoid slippage.

If the onions are too cold to handle, too slippery when wet, or you feel ridiculous with bread between your teeth, wear goggles.

Never let onions make a sobbing sucker of you.

Undoubtedly, an onion is a tear-smith or tear-maker.

It all fails; cry if you must.

The flavor is worth the stinging eyes and repeated cries.

Be well.