# Onions
Opinion: If You're Going to Cry, At Least Get the Right Onion
It's not a joke... millions of people "cry" when chopping onions. Onion bulbs have an intelligent design. Each onion cell has a sealed vacuole bags filled with enzymes. When cut or bitten into, these little bags release their content. Simply put, this also causes the release of a chemical irritant called syn-propanethial-S-oxide, says chemist Eric Block, who has written the authoritative book on onions.
The Lachrymatory Factor Makes You Cry Every Time You Cut Onions
Let’s admit it: our meals are incomplete without onions. Our taste buds will immediately notice the missing caramelized onions in our burgers, the lack of onion rings on the plate, or no onions in the onion soup. On average, 93% of American restaurants use onions in some of their top-selling dishes, and an average American consumes about twenty pounds of onion every year.