Onions: powerful medicine worth their ounce in tears
By Sari Huhtala
When chopping onions, bring on the tears. It’s a sign there’s a lot of sulphur-containing compounds that spell medicinal magic, so much so, that there are over 150 scientific studies exploring their pharmacological uses for everything from cancer to heart disease to lung and digestive disorders and much more.
This is one power food you don’t want to overlook. Onions, A. cepa, are good medicine.
But, just as scientists have denatured apples by genetically engineering them to stop them from browning, so too did they start toying with nature’s medicine about 20 years ago to create a Frankenfood onion that doesn’t trigger tears. That tearless onion is now called a Sunion. It just goes to show you the lengths that science goes to in order to meet the comfort needs of humans who don’t want to be inconvenienced by tearing up while making dinner.
But, I digress. The point is, there’s a lot of goodness in onions, and they’re worth shedding tears for.
Hippocrates, the father of medicine, prescribed onions for pneumonia, to reduce fluid build up (think natural water pills) and for wound healing.
In Chinese medicine onion tea is prescribed for arthritis, cough and cold, headaches, dysentery and cholera, according to a 2021 review in Pharmaceutical Biology.
Onions have also been used as an anticancer, antitumor, anti-inflammatory, antifungal, antimicrobial, antidiabetic and anti-asthmatic agent, according to A Review of Anti-inflammatory, Antioxidant, and Immunomodulatory Effects of Allium Cepa and its Main Constituents.
In folk medicine onion has been used for parasites, rheumatism, pain, high blood pressure, headaches, flatulence and more.
Packed with antioxidants, largely quercetin, onions, when consumed regularly, have been shown to help prevent vascular and heart diseases, cataracts and neurodegenerative disorders, studies have shown.
Among onion types, yellow onion has 11 times more flavonoid levels than white onion, while red onions have a high amount of anthocyanin, the antioxidants found in red, blue and purple fruits. Among onion spices, chive has the greatest antioxidant activity, according to the review. Cooking onions will reduce the antioxidant level, so aim for raw onions whenever possible.
Toss them raw on foods like fajitas, sprinkle raw onto cooked pizza, add plenty to various salads, add at the last minute to soups and stews, pasta sauce and stir-fries to get the most medicinal benefit from them.
Don’t overlook the skin of the onion, where a lot of the quercetin lies. Make a tea from the skins, or use them in a veggie broth, then strain to remove.
Onion essential oils provide a rich source of antioxidants. The review found when 100 ml of onion juice was consumed daily by healthy individuals, free radical levels reduced “significantly” and total antioxidant levels “significantly improved.”
Stay tuned for future articles on making medicine with onions!
(This information is not intended to replace medical advice and treatment from a health care practitioner).
Sari Huhtala is the creator, publisher and editor of Alive and Fit Magazine, which was birthed in 2007. She has over 25 years of experience in journalism and over 15 years of experience as a certified personal trainer and fitness instructor, and is a holistic chef, offering holistic cooking and edible wilds workshops. She is an organic farmer, wild-crafter and grandmother, who has spent over 20 years navigating a holistic, healthy path for her family. Reach her at friends@thelaughingforest.ca
Photo credit: © YelenaYemchuk via Canva.com
