innovation
Researchers invent onions that don’t make you cry – soon in the supermarket
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The onion is loved and hated: it refines many dishes and gives them the right taste, if it weren’t for the struggle to cut them, which often ends in tears. Researchers have found a solution to this very problem and have bred tearless onions – the so-called sunions.
A total of 30 years of breeding work have gone into the innovative onion: The tearless vegetable was invented by the German chemical company BASF together with the Ohio State University: “The idea came about about 35 years ago when the BASF plant breeder Rick Watson wanted to develop a mild, sweet onion to be marketed during the winter months,” the company explains on its website. This is how this tearless onion was created and it even has another advantage: while normal onions become sharper over time, the Sunion becomes sweeter and milder.
Why do we cry when cutting onions?
With the new onion, the tear fiasco could be over once and for all. But what does the onion actually do to us that makes us cry when we cut it? As soon as an onion is cut open, the onion cells are injured and substances that form a gas in the air escape. A tear-inducing irritant is created and tears are immediately activated in the eyes to flush out the substance. The result: our eyes burn and we have to start crying.
Tearless Onion: Pilot sales have already started
The tearless onion has been available in some Italian supermarkets since December 2021. The onion variety has also been available in Great Britain and France since last month. In Germany it will appear on the fresh food shelves from this month. “Sunion” has been on sale in the USA and Canada since 2017 and if the bulbs are well received during the test phase, sales will be expanded, as the project manager from Sunions Europe explains.
So far, only a few selected supermarkets have been involved in the test phase. The future will have to show whether the “Sunion” will prevail as a new onion variety. The tragedy of cutting onions could at least be a thing of the past with her.
Will the novelty prevail in Germany?
Germany is way ahead in onion cultivation: According to the Federal Information Center for Agriculture, a total of 1,567 farms grew onions on an area of a good 12,300 hectares in 2020. The largest growing areas are in Bavaria and Lower Saxony and because there are summer and winter onions, German onions can be bought all year round.
Whether the tearless onion will prevail here depends on various factors: The North Rhine-Westphalia consumer advice center considers the “Sunion” to be an alternative for consumers if the new variety has not changed significantly in terms of taste and is not much more expensive become. Andrea Schneider from Fachverband Deutsche Speisezwiebel e put three question marks on it.”
Sources: “Gesundheit.de”, “RND”, “BASF”, “deutsche-zwiebel.de”
This article originally appeared on stern.de.