What's the Best Way to Cut Onions Without Crying? New Research Suggests That Thin, Sharp Blades Are Key to Minimizing Tears
What’s the Best Way to Cut Onions Without Crying? New Research Suggests That Thin, Sharp Blades Are Key to Minimizing Tears
For a new study, physicists visualized and quantified the tear-producing droplets that get expelled from onions when they’re cut
New research suggests using a thin, sharp knife and cutting slowly could help prevent crying while cutting onions.
Pexels
From wearing goggles to rubbing the knife with lemon juice, home cooks have come up with a wide variety of clever tricks to keep themselves from crying while cutting onions in the kitchen.
Now, physicists have come up with another possible solution. Using a sharp knife while making slow, controlled cuts seems to be the best way to minimize the spray of tear-producing compounds in onions, according to a new study.
The paper has been published on the preprint server arXiv and has not yet been peer reviewed.
Scientists know why onions make us cry: When cut, these spherical alliums produce a chemical that stimulates the nerves responsible for producing tears. The volatile, irritating compound is called syn-propanethial-S-oxide.
But, recently, a team of physicists decided to explore the underlying mechanisms at play when syn-propanethial-S-oxide gets released from onions. Using techniques known as high-speed particle tracking velocimetry and digital image correlation, they were able to visualize and count droplets as they were being expelled from cut onions, per IFLScience’s Russell Moul. They also studied the onions themselves, making note of strain and deformations on the flesh during chopping.
To start, the team gathered fresh onions from local vendors, cut them into halves or quarters, then coated them in black spray paint.Then, they set up a high-speed camera and started chopping.
“Cutting is a really strange process,” says Anne Juel, a physicist at the University of Manchester who was not involved with the research, to NewScientist’s Alex Wilkins. “We cut things with knives every day, but to cut something, you need to go down to the atomic scale.”
Using a custom guillotine, the researchers experimented with cutting speeds ranging from 1.3 and 6.5 feet per second and blade thicknesses between 5 and 200 millimeters. They changed the steel blades manually and modified the speed by adjusting the height of the blade, which was released from above.
By analyzing the footage from the high-speed camera, they could investigate the dynamics of tear-producing particles that sprayed out from the onion as it was cut. The thinner, sharper blades produced fewer droplets that moved more slowly and with less energy, they found.
Meanwhile, the thicker, duller blades caused an explosion of high-speed particles that moved at up to 141 feet per second. This is because the dull blade initially bent the onion skin, which caused pressure to build up inside. When the blade finally sliced through, it released all that built-up energy and sent onion juice flying. Then, once the particles were in the air, they also fragmented into smaller pieces to create “an even more diffuse mist of all-natural mace,” writes Andrew Paul for Popular Science.
The duller blades produced as much as 40 times more particles than the sharper blades. Faster cutting speeds produced up to four times as many droplets as slower speeds.
This suggests that the best way to minimize tear-producing chemicals while chopping onions is to cut slowly with a thin, sharp knife. However, the researchers did not test this theory in their experiments, per NewScientist.
Refrigerated onions released a “noticeably larger volume” of droplets compared to room-temperature onions, the researchers write.
Pixabay
Home cooks are often advised to chill their onions before cutting them to minimize crying. So, the researchers also experimented with onions that had been refrigerated for 12 hours. However, in their tests, the refrigerated onions released a “noticeably larger volume” of droplets compared to room-temperature onions.
Preventing tears while cutting onions might seem like a trivial research topic. But the scientists say their work could also have important implications for food safety. The fragmented droplets that spray out of raw foods while they’re being cut could contribute to the spread of disease-causing pathogens, the researchers write in the paper.
“Ejected droplets can come into direct contact with contaminated blades or carry surface-borne pathogens as they leave the food surface,” they write. “Lighter dropletsreadily suspended and can be transported by ambient air currents, thereby posing a potential risk for airborne transmission.”
Keeping knife blades sharp, then, might be an easy way to help reduce food-borne illnesses, they posit.
“Sharper blades reduce not only the number of droplets but also their speed and kinetic energy,” the scientists write in the paper. “This is particularly relevant for fruits and vegetables, which can carry food-borne pathogens such as Salmonella.”
Many other recent research projects have attempted to use science to solve everyday problems. Scientists have visualized the plume of aerosolized particles ejected from commercial toilets during flushing, and some are even coming up with new urinal designs to help reduce urine splashing. And in the realm of enhancing food, Italian physicists came up with the perfect cacio e pepe recipe, while others have figured out the best way to make pour-over coffee and boil an egg.
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More about:
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Food Science
New Research
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#what039s #best #way #cut #onionsWhat's the Best Way to Cut Onions Without Crying? New Research Suggests That Thin, Sharp Blades Are Key to Minimizing Tears
What’s the Best Way to Cut Onions Without Crying? New Research Suggests That Thin, Sharp Blades Are Key to Minimizing Tears
For a new study, physicists visualized and quantified the tear-producing droplets that get expelled from onions when they’re cut
New research suggests using a thin, sharp knife and cutting slowly could help prevent crying while cutting onions.
Pexels
From wearing goggles to rubbing the knife with lemon juice, home cooks have come up with a wide variety of clever tricks to keep themselves from crying while cutting onions in the kitchen.
Now, physicists have come up with another possible solution. Using a sharp knife while making slow, controlled cuts seems to be the best way to minimize the spray of tear-producing compounds in onions, according to a new study.
The paper has been published on the preprint server arXiv and has not yet been peer reviewed.
Scientists know why onions make us cry: When cut, these spherical alliums produce a chemical that stimulates the nerves responsible for producing tears. The volatile, irritating compound is called syn-propanethial-S-oxide.
But, recently, a team of physicists decided to explore the underlying mechanisms at play when syn-propanethial-S-oxide gets released from onions. Using techniques known as high-speed particle tracking velocimetry and digital image correlation, they were able to visualize and count droplets as they were being expelled from cut onions, per IFLScience’s Russell Moul. They also studied the onions themselves, making note of strain and deformations on the flesh during chopping.
To start, the team gathered fresh onions from local vendors, cut them into halves or quarters, then coated them in black spray paint.Then, they set up a high-speed camera and started chopping.
“Cutting is a really strange process,” says Anne Juel, a physicist at the University of Manchester who was not involved with the research, to NewScientist’s Alex Wilkins. “We cut things with knives every day, but to cut something, you need to go down to the atomic scale.”
Using a custom guillotine, the researchers experimented with cutting speeds ranging from 1.3 and 6.5 feet per second and blade thicknesses between 5 and 200 millimeters. They changed the steel blades manually and modified the speed by adjusting the height of the blade, which was released from above.
By analyzing the footage from the high-speed camera, they could investigate the dynamics of tear-producing particles that sprayed out from the onion as it was cut. The thinner, sharper blades produced fewer droplets that moved more slowly and with less energy, they found.
Meanwhile, the thicker, duller blades caused an explosion of high-speed particles that moved at up to 141 feet per second. This is because the dull blade initially bent the onion skin, which caused pressure to build up inside. When the blade finally sliced through, it released all that built-up energy and sent onion juice flying. Then, once the particles were in the air, they also fragmented into smaller pieces to create “an even more diffuse mist of all-natural mace,” writes Andrew Paul for Popular Science.
The duller blades produced as much as 40 times more particles than the sharper blades. Faster cutting speeds produced up to four times as many droplets as slower speeds.
This suggests that the best way to minimize tear-producing chemicals while chopping onions is to cut slowly with a thin, sharp knife. However, the researchers did not test this theory in their experiments, per NewScientist.
Refrigerated onions released a “noticeably larger volume” of droplets compared to room-temperature onions, the researchers write.
Pixabay
Home cooks are often advised to chill their onions before cutting them to minimize crying. So, the researchers also experimented with onions that had been refrigerated for 12 hours. However, in their tests, the refrigerated onions released a “noticeably larger volume” of droplets compared to room-temperature onions.
Preventing tears while cutting onions might seem like a trivial research topic. But the scientists say their work could also have important implications for food safety. The fragmented droplets that spray out of raw foods while they’re being cut could contribute to the spread of disease-causing pathogens, the researchers write in the paper.
“Ejected droplets can come into direct contact with contaminated blades or carry surface-borne pathogens as they leave the food surface,” they write. “Lighter dropletsreadily suspended and can be transported by ambient air currents, thereby posing a potential risk for airborne transmission.”
Keeping knife blades sharp, then, might be an easy way to help reduce food-borne illnesses, they posit.
“Sharper blades reduce not only the number of droplets but also their speed and kinetic energy,” the scientists write in the paper. “This is particularly relevant for fruits and vegetables, which can carry food-borne pathogens such as Salmonella.”
Many other recent research projects have attempted to use science to solve everyday problems. Scientists have visualized the plume of aerosolized particles ejected from commercial toilets during flushing, and some are even coming up with new urinal designs to help reduce urine splashing. And in the realm of enhancing food, Italian physicists came up with the perfect cacio e pepe recipe, while others have figured out the best way to make pour-over coffee and boil an egg.
Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.
More about:
Food
Food Science
New Research
Physics
#what039s #best #way #cut #onions
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