THESE IS HIGHLY SECRET INFORMATION THE ONION LOBBY DOESN'T WANT YOU TO KNOW
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Onion Toxicity: What Are Onions, And What Do They Contain?
Onions, like the very similar shallots, leeks, chives, scallions, and garlic, are part of the Allium family (lilies). Allium is a genus of perennially-growing bulbous plants that produce a series of chemical compounds such as cysteine sulfoxide, isoalliin, syn-Propanethial S-oxide, allicin, and mustard oil, which are responsible for their distinctive taste, smell, and the irritation they cause to your body.
Different members of Allium have varying levels of these chemicals, and their pungency generally depends on how much they carry.
Onion Toxicity: What Is Allicin?
Allicin is a sulfur compound found in onions responsible for a lot of the irritation the plant causes.
Why is it there?
According to chemist Eric Block of the University of Missouri at St. Louis, who has been studying onions since 1971:
"Since allicin is anti fungal as well as antibiotic, it could offer the garlic plant protection against the bulb decay induced by fungi. And since the lacrimatory factor is irritating and repugnant to certain animals, it too has survival value."
-Eric Block, Ph.D., "The Chemistry of Garlic and Onions."
Essentially what we have is an element - just one of several sulfur compounds present - that is intended to repel and injure things that would devour the plant and bulb, be they fungi, bugs, of mammals. When onion extract is applied to bacteria and fungi it literally destroys them.
Many a canny gardener has realized this and strategically planted onions, garlic, leeks, and other members of the Allium family to ward off pests. Many creatures will not cross a phalanx of allium, and so can't get to the juicy tomatoes waiting beyond. Their senses warn them that this is a food to avoid.
Although we like to think of ourselves as a species apart, at the end of the day we are just big, smarter-than-average animals with vulnerable physical bodies, and if a food is damaging enough that it destroys fungi and other bacteria and drives hungry animals away, it probably isn't wise for us to ignore the fact.
Onion Toxicity: Onions Sicken And Kill
While working as a newspaper reporter several years ago I ran across a man in a retirement home in Meriden, Connecticut that grew up on a onion farm in California. Always interested in agricultural life, I struck up a conversation and he told me something interesting: onion toxicity had almost killed him.
His mother died when he was 13 and since his father wasn't much of a cook, the boy was frequently hungry. To supplement his unappetizing meals, he would take breaks during his farm chores to eat onions.
"I didn't like them raw at first, but after awhile they started tasting great," he told me when I informed him that I found the taste of onions to be sickening.
Although he didn't connect it to the onions, he became increasingly pale and weak over the course of a few months until one day he collapsed while doing his chores.
He awoke in the hospital getting a blood transfusion, and was told that he'd come down with severe case of onion-induced anemia and had been dangerously close to death. After treatment he went on to a full recovery, but, he said, "I haven't eaten an onion since. When they try to put them in my food here I throw a fit."
Onion Toxicity: Humans Are Not Exempt
Although no full-scale tests have been done on onion toxicity in humans, for obvious reasons, there are plenty of instances of all types of animals, large and small, being sickened and killed by onions when their senses don't do a good enough job warning them away.
For instance, a group of water buffalo that ate some onions dumped in their field all died (4). A study on geese found that onions killed them too, with an autopsy revealed swelling of the liver and spleen (5). In a herd of cows that had 20 onions a day per cow added to their feed for six weeks, five cows died and two pregnant cows lost their calves. Anemia is the initial result of onion toxicity, the researchers found, but it eventually lead to organ damage and death (6).