Through My Eyes

The email stated that the onion possesses astonishing medicinal powers, namely it's antibacterial and antiseptic properties. It also mentioned that if a raw onion is placed next to a sick person's bed that it would suck the illness right out of them.

Harald's email also suggests that you should place a few cut up onions in your house and they will absorb all bacteria, saving your family from countless illnesses!

Just as I was thinking of the appropriate way to honor such a wondrous plant, I discovered that like all the best superheroes, the mighty onion has a dark side.

The email went on to reveal that since onions are such lures for bacteria, eating an onion that is left out for too long can poison you. As if this weren't shocking enough, in a scandalous showing of duplicity, the email warned that onions could even create deadly toxic bacteria of their own. Truly, with great antibacterial power comes great antibacterial responsibility.

After reading the email part of me wanted to throw out my medicine and embrace this new antibacterial saviour. While contemplating my find I decided to do a bit of research of my own and here is what I found.

Studies abound on the antibacterial properties of onion. In fact, a recent study found that when combined with garlic and lime extracts, onions can help inhibit the growth of certain strains of E. coli which are resistant to conventional antibiotics.

Another study showed that onion powder, when combined with coconut extract, completely eliminated roundworm infection in mice after just 8 days of treatment.

Since our email started out on such solid ground, I had high hopes for the claim of onions assisting in eliminating germs. Unfortunately, while onion vapours have been shown to have some limited antimicrobial effects, placing an onion next to an infected person won't cause bacteria to swarm out of them towards the onion.

The study on onion vapour also noted that the effects of the vapour are limited by both time and temperature. After a few hours the onion vapors lose potency, even in the close confines of a Petri dish. Their effect on someone sitting across the room would be pretty close to zero.

The email's claim that onions create toxic bacteria has also been disputed. This exciting theory concerning the origin of life led early researchers to believe that maggots are created by rotting meat, frogs pop out of pools of slime, and that anchovies came from sea foam.

So where does this leave us? Do we honour the onion for its antimicrobial prowess, or shun it for its failure to be all that it claimed to be? Like most sensational claims, science has shown that the email I received was only loosely based on fact.

Even though the onion isn't the powerful cure-all that my friend Harald's email wanted me to believe, the onion redeems itself by managing to still contain some antimicrobial and antioxidant properties, making it a welcome addition to any dish.