Tired of collapsing in a puddle of tears every time you have to slice up an onion. You might be in luck. “Tearless” onions are about to go on sale in the UK for the first time. No more having to suit up in full scuba gear every time you have to start prepping for a BBQ.
These tearless onions are called Sunions, presumably because Funyuns was already taken. Waitrose, the supermarket chain the UK that is selling the Sunions, says that they’re perfect for people with sensitive eyes or if you’re cooking with children. However, they did not offer a solution to help stop the crying if you’re trying to chop onions and watch The Notebook at the same time.
The supermarket also said that the onions have a mild flavour, which makes them perfect for use in cooking or to be used raw in a salad. You know, all the things that you can already do with an onion. This onion is an onion and can be used as an onion, which is handy.
“We understand how appealing tearless onions are to our customers which is why we’re delighted to launch Sunions in selected stores”, said Paul Bidwell, the onion buyer at Waitrose, who must be pretty chuffed that he’s having such a big day at work. Not often that the onion buyer at a supermarket chain gets to make a statement. Bet he was buzzing over the Christmas break, ending conversations with a coy “We’ve got something cooking at work but I really can’t say anything until the big launch, but let’s just say you won’t cry about it!”
The tearless onions were invented by Rick Watson, a fella who works for a chemical company in Germany and also breeds plants. He started working on this onion in the late 1980s and it has taken 30 years of breeding onions to find one that won’t bring tears to your eyes. Which is both simultaneously impressive but also a very long length of time to fix a problem that isn’t really all that much of a problem.
Before you get too carried away with dreaming of a tearless world where you’re chopping onions worry-free, you might want to know that these Sunions cost three times the amount of regular onions. So maybe getting teary for a minute or two isn’t so bad after all.