If onions make you cry

So many onions to get from the market. Tha means so many to cut.

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I start crying after cutting only a few onions, and I wonder how do chefs manage to do it all day? Well there's a reason why it makes you cry and if you understand why, you'll know how to prevent it.

Onions have some kind of acid in them that make your eyes tear up. When you slice an onion, you break some of the cells in the onion and some of the other cells mix with the acid. This gives off a gas that will make your eyes tear up. This gas makes a reaction with the water in your eyes and makes sulfuric acid. This makes your eyes burn, and your tear glands produce tears to try to wash your eyes out.

So you use a very, very sharp knife. That way you will damage lesser onion cells, making less sulfur reach your eyes, that's making less sulfur acid meaning less tears.

You’ll want a good knife so you don’t have to do a lot of chopping. That’s literally all the advice you need, I’ve chopped a lot of onions without crying. If I do start to feel a burn I know it’s time for the knife to go back to the sharpening stone.

Yes, you can peel them under running water which is not something I recommend, and you can also just not be over the onions when you’re cutting them. When you’re cutting, take a step back from the cutting board so you’re not directly over the onions. If you're handling your onions, you can avoid crying by breathing through your mouth instead of your nose, because through your nose the irritants can be drawn to your eyes. I've never tried it, but some people say placing onions in the freezer for a while can help with cutting them.

I have to find out whether the big onion cutting factories have a special system to deal with the high concentration of onion cutting irritants, or maybe the workers just have to put up with all the crying.

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