Attack Of the Killer Onions?

By Atom Bergstrom

Atom’s Blog

No food is “good” or “bad” until it’s placed it context.

Let’s take an onion, a food the U.S. Army used to neutralize anthrax during World War II.

But onion doesn’t just poison anthrax —it poisons cats and dogs, causing hemolytic anemia.

It’s called onion toxicosis.

Onions lengthen blood clotting time in a human being, which can be either “good” or “bad.”

Sophia Yin (“Attack of the Killer Onions,” The Huffington Post, Sept. 29, 2009) wrote …

“In a scattered rash of cat onion toxicity cases a number of years back, the culprit was onion powder used to flavor some baby foods. Veterinarians often temporarily feed meat baby food to cats who are infirmed and unwilling to eat their regular foods. So when the baby food formulations changed, some cats took a turn for the worse while under veterinary care. Due to public pressure baby foods no longer contain onion powder.”

I eat onions almost every night (the ideal time to eat them), and combine them with beets, known “blood builders.”

Onions fight uterine cancer, which is “good,” and can cause abortion, which is “bad.”

They’re not the highest choice for a breast-feeding mother.

Onions pose a greater danger in our 21st Century world of corporate chemical immersion, and THIS IS TRUE TO A GREATER OR LESSER EXTENT FOR EVERY FOOD WE EAT.

According to “Onion Juice with 2,4-D Is Fatally Unpleasant,” Science News Letter, May 3, 1947 …

“Onion juice mixed with 2,4-D boosts the weed-killing capacity of the chemical from ten- to twenty fold. […] Greatest effect was obtained when one part of onion juice was dissolved in from twenty to thirty parts of water. Both above and below that ratio the killing power diminished.”

Yet 2,4-D and garlic showed no such interaction.

The median lethal dose (LD50) leaves much to be desired because it ignores INTERACTIONS and PARTS OF WATER.

Despite Rachel Carson’s warnings in her 1962 book, Silent Spring, 2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid remains in common use today.
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