Tag: Onions

Categories
Knowledgebase

4 Foods You Should Not Keep In The Freezer

frozen tomatoes
Photo: pbs.org

There are just some foods you should not keep in the freezer. I have friends that think the only way to keep the leftover of foods is by putting them in the freezer. God, this always makes me sick and I try every time to correct them but it just keeps repeating itself.

From bread to fruits, vegetables, and soups, they keep anything that remains of those foods in the freezer. Yes, I know cold storage is an effective way to keep and preserve foods to last longer but I can tell you it is not suitable for every type of food.

do not freeze

In this article, you will see some food materials you should not freeze or even refrigerate. You will also get to know the reasons why you should not freeze them.

Foods You Should Not Keep In The Freezer And Why

Onions:

Placing uncut onions in the refrigerator makes them mushy and soggy by the time you take them out. When you remove the peel, you see that there is only one thing such onion is good for — bleeding with other types of foods.

You can no longer slice and dice such onions into foods because they would have lost their traditional colour (they have different colours). So, it’s best to keep your onions in an open, cool and dry place.

Watermelon:

It’s really an unpleasant sight when you bring a frozen watermelon out of the freezer. Apart from the fact that it no longer looks good, the flesh becomes fibrous and not easy to bite.

If you have ever tried eating a frozen watermelon that was thawed, you would know that such watermelon loses its kind of crunchy texture. They become fibrous and tough in the mouth. Also, research has shown that keeping them at room temperature might even help preserve the antioxidants present.

Tomatoes:

One of the things freezing does to your tomatoes is to damage its tissues — just like it does to many other foods. The only way most foods can be kept frozen is by using a rapid and uninterrupted freezing process.

frozen tomatoes
Photo: pbs.org

When you freeze your whole tomatoes and bring it outside, what you have is nothing more than the juice and flesh of the tomatoes with the skin peeling off. You can no longer slice this kind of tomatoes. All you can now do is to blend with other foods.

Potatoes:

You cannot put potatoes in the freezer for more than one reason. You should not even refrigerate your potatoes because the cold temperature makes them develop a sweet taste to the level that it becomes unpleasant.

This happens due to the conversion of starch in the potatoes to sugar. This increase in sugar will cause potatoes to darken when cooked. It is usually recommended to let your refrigerated potatoes cool totally — if you refrigerate them before you cook them. This will help reduce the level of discolouration.

Even though freezing damages some food materials, its benefits outweighs those damages caused. If you still want your food to remain safe to eat over a long period, then freezing is a very good option.

Categories
Food & Nutrition

Red, White, Yellow Onion: Which Has Most Health Benefits?

onion with different colours and health benefits

Many people like to just eat onions and blend onion with various foods without knowing their attributes, nutritional composition and which one gives the most health benefits. Many think these onions only differ in colour and taste – but no, they are different in terms of the health benefits and other beneficial compounds they provide.

onion with different colours and health benefits

These onion types are all powerful superfoods that come with anti-carcinogenic, antiviral, antibacterial, and antioxidant properties. All these are beneficial to our body but which one has the most in terms of these benefits.

All these types of onion have been found to be low on the glycemic index (how much sugar they add to our blood), with a rating of 10. They provide about 10 percent of the daily value for vitamin C and the same amount of calcium per serving.

Differences in Health & Nutritional Benefits of Red, White & Yellow Onions

The red onion has about 2 grams of fiber per 100-gram serving. This is slightly a better source of fiber when compared to the white onion which contains about 1.2 grams of fiber in the same serving. Both are not particularly high sources of fiber.

Difference In Antioxidant Properties

From the colour of the red onion, it is easier to predict that they contain higher amount of flavonols. These compounds called flavonols have antioxidant properties. Red onions contain 415 to 1917 mg of flavonols compared to yellow ones, which only contain 270 to 1187 mg.

Red onions have higher flavonols, than yellow onions, which in turn have higher flavonols that white onions. The flavonols are more concentrated in the outer and redder layer of the onion. Therefore, when you peel your onion, don’t do so deep into the outer red layer of the onion.

Another important compound present in red onions is quercetin – a polyphenol compound. It helps in getting rid of free radicals. This compound is present in white onions too, but a lot more in the red type.

Difference In How They Help Fight Cancer

Since the red onions have higher level of antioxidants in them than the white and yellow types, they (the red onions) provide higher protection against cancer.

As mentioned earlier in this article, red onions contain higher level of quercetin. This quercetin, with allicin in red onions has been shown to reduce inflammation and be beneficial for both the prevention and treatment of cancer.

A particular study has shown that the risk of stomach cancer was reduced by 50% when half an onion was eaten daily. Other studies have also shown that eating onions reduces the risk of stomach, colorectal, oral, laryngeal, esophageal and ovarian cancer.

Final verdict on choosing onions…

As has been said earlier, don’t over-peel onions. This way, you get the best nutritional and health benefits from them. Most of these compounds that give these health benefits are more concentrated in the outer layers of onion.

According to a particular study, peeling the first two layers of the onion removes 75% of the antioxidant anthocyanins. So, you might want to simmer down on cutting those outer layers of your onions.

ALSO SEE: Working Tips For Cutting Onions Without Crying!

Categories
Food Recipes

OnionEgg Recipe: See How To Make This Nutritious Food

Hello friends, I have been postponing to share this article for about three weeks now because I felt it was too simple a recipe until I shared the idea with another food enthusiast who actually loved it completely. She went ahead to try it and she called to say it tastes great. In fact she had introduced it to her mum who is diabetic. In her words: “Guy, how you take think am, although very simple but it is great and healthy. I love it bro”. It was then I realized that the food recipe I stumbled upon as a result of my curiosity in trying new things is worth sharing with the public.

Many of you are used to frying eggs and adding few slices of onions but in this meal, onions would the food to fry while adding egg and any other ingredient that you love to have in a meal like this.

onion eggs recipe

What Is Onion Egg or Onionegg?

Onionegg is a type of food that majorly consists of onions and egg. I guess you are saying; “what exactly is special about it? Whenever I fry my eggs, I add slices of onion”. Yes, you are absolutely correct but the method of preparation is slightly different. Before I share with you the method, I will like to briefly share the health benefits associated with this meal.

What Onions Do To Your Body

  • Onion helps to control glucose level which is quite important for diabetes patients
  • It is loaded with numerous anti-oxidants that fight off cancer causing agents.
  • It also contains significant amount of vitamin C that helps to improve the immune system
  • The bulbous plant also helps in proper digestion and prevents against stomach ulcer.

What Eggs Do To Your Body

  • It contains high amount of protein which is important for repair of tissues in our body.
  • It also contain a substantial amount of Omega 3 fatty acid which helps in proper brain function and weight management. It was included in this post that listed foods that help you get sharper memory.

In this article, I am not writing on the health benefit of onions and eggs else, I would have highlighted many benefits. You can check related posts on this blog. Let’s move on to the making of Onionegg.

How To Make Onionegg (Recipe)

Ingredients

  • A large size onion bulb or two smaller sizes.
  • One egg
  • Salt(put to taste)
  • Pepper( optional)
  • Cray fish( optional)

Method

  • Peel your onions and wash them
  • Cut them into five or six pieces and grate them or blend them till you get a pasty form. A blender is better.
  • Add your egg to the blended or grated onions and whisk properly. The blended onions have to be at least twice the quantity of added egg.
  • Add other ingredients like salt, crayfish and pepper; then whisk properly until smooth.
  • Place frying pan on cooker and add small amount of any healthy oil that you have. I used coconut oil.
  • At frying point, add your mixture and fry the way you would prefer. Onionegg is ready.

You would realize that the simple difference is the large size of onion used. The main food here is onions. This recipe is for one serving. You can give it a try particularly if you are a lover of onions like me, you will be glad you did.

ALSO SEE: 3 Tricks That I Use To Cut/Dice Onion Without Crying

Remember this is healthy and do not forget to share.

Categories
Food Processing

3 Tricks That I Use To Cut/Dice Onion Without Crying

I like eating onion in foods a lot but I just always had difficulty in enduring those eye stings and keeping the tears from rolling. It’s really really hard. I have know about this delicious and nutritional onionegg recipe for quite a while now but it was always a struggle to cut all the onions needed. This stopped being so when I discovered these three tricks that help me cut and dice onions without tears. I am going to share them with you in this short article.

Suggestions On Cutting Onions Without Crying

I have read a lot of recommendations on various articles on the internet – some were as dumb and whatever you could think to be the dumbest but I did them anyway with no success. I was the one looking for something. I even read articles where several people claimed the recommendations worked for them while some said it worked but only felt slight stings.

onion dicing


At a point, I started feeling different things might work for different people and with different varieties of onion, so I kept reading and experimenting.

Some of the tips I know you must have come across before include “cut the onion while holding your tongue to the roof of your mouth”, “light candles before cutting the onion”, “chew gum while cutting the onion” and many more like that. The second one appears dumb right? I feel so too.

How I Cut Onions Without Crying/Feeling Sting In My Eye

I did not get lucky with any of those recommendations but I kept trying until I stumbled upon these three that I now use till today. You can give them a try too and see if they work for you.

1. Freeze or Refrigerate The Onion

I noticed that whenever I pick onion out of the freezer and cut, I never felt the stinging sensation that happens in the eye and there were no tears. I though this just happened by accident, then I did an experiment on it. I took the same type of onion, put one in the freezer and cut the other immediately.

I cried when I cut the onion like that but when I brought the other one out of the freezer and cut, it was painless and tear-free.

onions in refrigerator

When you want to do this, do not allow the onion to be too frozen to make it hard. This will make it hard to cut and even destroy the tissues.

Another interesting tip on page 3 (click below) …

2. Keeping The Onion In Water

I noticed this one when I used the vegetable grater for a period of time. During this time, I grate pepper, tomatoes and onions to make my rice stew; and to garnish when cooking spinach. When I want to do this, I get a bowl and put all the pepper, tomatoes and onions in the water and put one by one in the vegetable grater. I would take the onion last because I was scared of what would happen to my eye.

RECOMMENDED: See What Causes Us To Cry When Peeling Onions

The I would notice that nothing happened or I simply just felt little pain in the eye towards the end of grating.

onions under water

Later, I started putting the onions in the water like 30 minutes before I grate and it has been working for me ever since.

3. I Cut It Under Water

I actually read about this one online and I gave it a trial, it worked. If I don’t really have the 30 minutes luxury to soak the onion in water, I simply adopt this method. What I do is to get a big bowl of water, get my knife and onion, dip both my hand in the bowl full of water and cut the onions therein.

Some have argued that useful components of the onions are leached into the water. I think that there are prices to pay when you do stuffs like this. If you want to get all the nutrients and other components of your onion, then be prepared to cry for it.

Finally, some women have told me that they have noticed that tears do not come out and their eyes don’t burn when they wear contacts and cut onions. I have heard this from more than six women. I have not tried this but I think it is worth giving a shot.

Tips and tricks recommended by FoodsNG readers…

Bethel:

Chewing gum while peeling onions also stop someone from crying

Frances:

First cut out a small onions and put in ur mouth before cutting d rest. Close ur mouth while cutting others. It works like magic

Teresita Cunanan:

Wipe the chopping board with vinegar before you slice the onions

Uby:

Rub salt round the onions and cut it. No drop of tear will come out. It helps

Please, if you have any other trick that you use with success, please let us know by dropping us a line in the comment section. You can also check what others have written there too. Thank you!

ALSO SEE: Onions And 4 Other Foods That Help Reduce Belly Fat