Why do we tear up when cutting onions but not when eating them?
In: Biology
Chef here who graduated culinary school and has 13+ years in the restaurant business. There’s a gas in the root of the vegetable that is an irritant to prevent it from being eaten. It’s kind of like how jalapenos are spicy for this reason; to prevent animals from biting into it. The chemical is released when we cut the root.
I mean, if you ate a raw onion you would almost certainly cry. Before an onion is cooked down or chopped tiny, it holds a lot of liquid. Cutting an onion sprays out the onion juice and some of it gets in our eyes and makes us cry.
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