Why Do Onions Make Us Cry?
An informational text that explains why cutting an onion makes us cry and how to reduce the tears.
Tap any word to hear it · dotted words have a definition in the glossary
🎧 Listen
1Few kitchen jobs are as unpleasant as an onion. After a few seconds, your eyes start to , and soon tears are running down your face. For a long time, people believed that onions simply had a strong smell. Today, scientists understand that the onion is actually fighting back.
2An onion grows under the ground, where it can easily be eaten by animals and insects. To protect itself, it has developed a clever chemical . Inside its cells, the onion stores sulfur and, separately, special proteins called . As long as the cells are whole, the two never meet.
3When you cut an onion, however, you break thousands of cells. The mix with the sulfur , and a chain of chemical reactions begins. Within seconds, the onion produces a gas that floats up into the air. When this gas reaches your eyes, it the on their surface. Your brain responds by telling your eyes to produce tears in order to wash the irritating gas away.
4There are several ways to reduce the tears. A sharp knife is a good start, because it cuts cleanly and breaks fewer cells than a one. Putting the onion in the refrigerator for half an hour before cutting it also helps, since cold slows down the chemical reactions. Some cooks cut onions near an open window or under a kitchen fan, which carries the gas away from their faces.
5Scientists in Japan and New Zealand have even developed onions that do not cause tears. Still, many cooks are not worried. For them, a few tears are a small price to pay for the that onions add to almost every dish.
📘 Glossary
- chopping - cutting into small pieces
- sting - to cause a sharp, burning pain
- defense - a way of protecting yourself
- compounds - substances made of two or more chemicals joined together
- enzymes - proteins that start chemical changes in living things
- irritates - makes something sore or uncomfortable
- nerves - thin fibers that carry feelings and messages to the brain
- blunt - not sharp
- flavor - the taste of food
Questions
Finding details
1. What did people believe about onions for a long time?Making inferences
2. What does the writer mean by "the onion is actually fighting back"?Finding details
3. Why does the onion need to protect itself?Finding details
4. When do the enzymes and the sulfur compounds meet?Reference words
5. In paragraph 3, the word "it" in "it irritates the nerves" refers to…Finding details
6. Why does the brain tell the eyes to produce tears?Finding details
7. Give TWO ways to reduce the tears, and explain why ONE of them works.Word meaning
8. In paragraph 4, a "blunt" knife is a knife that…Purpose and structure
9. What is the purpose of the last paragraph?
✍️ Writing task
Choose a food that you love or hate. Describe it, explain why you feel this way about it, and say whether you think your feelings could ever change.
80–100 words
0 words
Answer every question to get a score (0/9)