Chopping onions is a basic kitchen nightmare that frequently brings home cooks to tears, but "tearless" onions are about to hit the shelves in the United Kingdom for the first time. A "brown, tearless, and sweet" onion variety billed as a "gamechanger" for chefs with red eyes.
People go to great lengths to eliminate the sob factor at mealtimes because of the irritation created by the vapors generated while chopping into an onion. Putting onions in the freezer beforehand, soaking them in water, or even wearing swimming goggles are some of the tactics used.
Sunion: The tearless Onion
Sunions, which Waitrose claims are "ideal for individuals with sensitive eyes as well as working in the kitchen with children," may soon make onion goggles obsolete.
Their mild flavor makes them perfect for cooking, but they may also be consumed raw in a salad, according to the firm. Rick Watson, a plant breeder at the German chemical company BASF, came up with these onions.
He started working on the concept in the late 1980s, and instead of genetic modification, he used natural methods to create a unique variety. It took more than 30 years of breeding less pungent onion varieties to produce a variety where the vapors generated during chopping aren't strong enough to cause tears in the eyes, according to the brand.
Sunions, which are more expensive than normal onions, are already on the market in the United States, but they have not been well received.
The “Sweet and Mild” Flavor of Sunions
"Onions have volatile compounds that cause tearing and have a strong flavor, and the amounts of those components in other onions remain the same or grow with time." Sunions, on the other hand, have the exact opposite effect, and these compounds diminish, resulting in a tearless, sweet, and mild onion."
