DO YOU KNOW WHY YOUR EYE TEARS WHILE CHOPPING ONION?

Onions are grown and used all over the world! Ask a great cook, they will gladly tell you that onions play a major role to improve the taste of foods when preparing meals. And anyone who has cut/chop onions knows that it can make you tear.

Here is why you tear;

Onions contains water, vitamins and compounds such as sugar and sulfur. The sulfur is a natural chemical found in many smelly substances, such as skunk spray and garlic. This is one way that plants defend themselves – producing substances that repel creatures who might eat them.

One sulfur compound in onions, called propyl sulfoxide, escapes into the air when you slice an onion. When it comes into contact with moisture, such as water vapor in the air or the natural moisture around your eyes, it changes into sulfuric acid. Sulfuric acid has a strong smell and irritates your eyes, therefore you start tearing and having a runny nose. This happens to flush away the irritating chemicals off the eye.

Now, you know why you tear while cutting onions.

Here are a couple of suggestions to reduce the irritating effect of onions on your eyes.

-Cut off a little bit of the onion root.
– cut onions under running water.
– Refrigerate the onions before use
– using a fan while cutting onions can blow the gas away from the eye.

Supreme Vision cares.

Supreme Vision (Eye clinic)
2, Bouar Close, Off Bangui Street, Off Adetokunbo Ademola Crescent Wuse 2, Abuja.

Tel: +234 808 586 1111
Web: www.sveyeclinic.com