News
PSA: Tearless onions are now on Australian shelves
By Joanna Sarah-Freedman
11 Jul 2023
2m
Don’t you hate it when you’re cooking and a pesky onion sets you off in floods of tears?
There’s pretty much nothing worth cooking without them, and until this moment we thought it was just one of the perils we had to deal with in life.
But… what’s that? Tearless onions are now available to buy in Australia, and they sound like an absolute revelation.
Sick of crying over onions? (Credit: Getty)
Yup, available in Woolworths stores Down Under, Happy Chop’s Tearless Onions will mean people no longer have to reach for the Kleenex.
The onions reduce tears because they’re grown in a way that means they have less tear-inducing chemicals.
“As a natural self-defence mechanism, onions release a combination of natural chemicals and enzymes (or ‘volatile compounds’) that can cause some tears and irritation when an onion is damaged or cut,” Woolworths explained to Nine News.
“Happy Chop – Tearless Onions contain fewer of these compounds, and these compounds continue to reduce after they are harvested, compared to regular onions where these compounds increase over time.
“This means they become more tearless over time.”
Happy Chop onions are designed not to make you cry (Credit: Woolworths)
Pretty genius, huh?
The onion has apparently been in development for decades, and being through a rigorous testing process.
However, from July 12th, lucky Aussies will be able to grab them, priced at $2.50 (£1.31) per 500g.
Now, you might be thinking you’ve seen these bad boys before, and that’s because Waitrose sold something very similar last year.
They launched a tearless onion called Sunions, but they’re not still on shelves today.
Here’s hoping we’ll be able to get our something similar very soon!
Featured image: Getty/ Woolworths
