Why do onions make your eyes watery?!
Why do onions make your eyes watery?
gosh why do they sting and make you cry? ooow the burn!
Answers:
When you cut into an onion, you slice through cells which contain sulfur compounds. Sulfur is quite a noxious (bad smelling) element. The compounds released are highly volatile, meaning they quickly enter the air in their vicinity. Your eyes produce tears because your body wants to wash or dilute the chemicals before they effect your eyes. The tears are a natural way the body can wash the offensive chemicals away. Since there are a variety of onions, we would expect there to be a variety of amounts and types of sulfur compounds produced by them.
Think of it as different types of apples: some are red, some yellow, some green, and they all taste a bit different due to different chemical compositions. Onions are different in that way too. Some are REALLY bad smelling, some only mildly bad smelling.
One further bit of information. The chemicals which I described above are both volatile AND water soluble. This means if you cut the onion while holding it under a spray of water, the chemicals will wash down the drain and will not enter the air in as great an amount to cause your eyes irritation.
the juice from the onion is what cause the eyes to burn
Oh yea they do burn a lot. But it is because of the juice from the onions. The onion also gives off an aroma and it makes your eyes water..The juice from the onion might just squirt in your eye and you dont even realize it...But sooner or later you will get use to the burning and it wont burn as much.
Onions produce the chemical irritant known as syn-propanethial-S-oxide. It stimulates the eyes' lachrymal glands so they release tears. Scientists used to blame the enzyme allinase for the instability of substances in a cut onion. Recent studies from Japan, however, proved that lachrymatory-factor synthase, (a previously undiscovered enzyme) is the culprit (Imani et al, 2002).
The process goes as follows:
Lachrymatory-factor synthase is released into the air when we cut an onion.
The synthase enzyme converts the sulfoxides (amino acids) of the onion into sulfenic acid.
The unstable sulfenic acid rearranges itself into syn-ropanethial-S-oxide.
Syn-propanethial-S-oxide gets into the air and comes in contact with our eyes. The lachrymal glands become irritated and produces the tears!
This site goes into the specific details in length http://home.howstuffworks.com/question53...
Basically cutting them releases enzymes that cause a volatile gas that burns the eyes.
cuz they relese a chemical, put a pece of bread at the end of the tip of the knife it helps alot
because when you cut them they release a weak acid that gets in the air and burns your eyes.
vapors, curse the vapors...but that what does it, to prevent it, do not breath through your nose, use just your mouth. also peel them under running cold water. to get onion smell off your hands, rub them on your faucet with a little water.
Sulfur
I've tried every tip out there to stop the tears and the only one that I've had success with is to light a votive candle and keep it next to the cutting board - I know it sounds odd - but it really works
Did you know that if you eat chewing gum whilst you cut onions it won`t make your eyes water.
i`ve tried it it works