Why Do Onions Make You Cry?

The existence of the most basic and crucial ingredient in the world has been known for centuries since the Bronze Age. In fact, onions were used in spiritual ceremonies in ancient Egyptian times as well as being applied to the muscles of Roman gladiators.

Other uses of onions include paying for rent in the Middle age and as of now, it is widely used in our daily cooking.

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Even though it is an important ingredient, peeling the skin off will definitely make you cry out. So the question remains, how can an onion make you emotional when we know for sure that garlic does not make you feel that way?

1. When onions are cut in half, the cells will break down and releases many substances such as the alliinase enzyme and amino acid sulfoxide. The Alliinase enzyme will break down the amino acid sulfoxide into sulfenic acid.

2. These unstable sulfenic acids will spontaneously arrange themselves to become thiosulfinate. Thiosulfinate will release a very spicy and pungent smell and at one time will be the reason why you start to cry your eyes out.

syn-Propanethial-S-oxide

3. Syn-Propanethial-S-oxide will then move in the air and into your eyes. The first layer of your eye which is the cornea to stimulate the lachrymal gland to release the tears. When the syn-Propanethial-S-oxide is detected, all the fibers in the cornea will direct the lachrymal gland to clean the irritation on the eye.

4. Automatically, our eyes will start to blink many times and produce tears which will wash away the pain in our eyes. Of course, the first thing you will do will be to rub the eyes with your hands but this will make matters worse as your hand is also covered with syn-Propanethial-S-Oxide.

Only 30 seconds are needed for you to start crying after cutting the onions which is the same time required for the concentration of syn-Propanethial-S-oxide to be at its highest level.

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Why Other types of Onions Not Make Us Cry?

The other family of the onions like garlic and holland onion also produces sulfenic acid when cut down. But in most cases, these onions produce a low level of sulfenic acid or do not have the lachrymatory factor (LF)-synthase enzyme at all.