Onion goggles???

12 years ago

I will be 68 next month and I had never heard of onion goggles until two weeks ago. I was reading, in the TV Guide or maybe People, an interview with Katherine Heigl done while she was cooking in her own kitchen. The author noted that she was wearing onion goggles during the interview and I was immediately intrigued with the idea of something that might actually help my super sensitive eyes. I have tried peeling onions under water and it was sloppy and didn't really work. I found onion goggles at Amazon and ordered a pair. The day they were delivered I couldn't wait to try them. They work!!!!!! I just used them for a second test on a really nasty onion. I felt absolutely NOTHING and didn't realize how powerful the onion was until I tasted it on a taco. No more tears after six decades of serious "onion eyes" for me. How is it that I never heard of them until just recently?

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Comments (10)

centralcacyclist
12 years ago
I'm glad they work.

The topic comes up every now and them

Here is a link that might be useful: Goggles, scroll down.
nancylouise5me
12 years ago
We have used them for quite a few months now. I was surprised by how well they work too. I always thought that it was the onion vapors going up your nose that made you cry. We look goofy wearing them, but they do work great! NancyLouise
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I try to let mine dry completely before I "net" them, but in a wet/humid year that can be hard to do. So, yes, I have netted them and hung them up in the root cellar before they were completely cured and I had no more spoilage than usual. Normally, I have very low spoilage. The amount of spoilage you see depends a lot not only on how well-cured they are, but on how they're stored. My tornado shelter keeps them cool and dry, and it has a wind turbine on it, so they have good air flow as well. Because we have the shaded patio, a covered wraparound porch, and a sun porch (until last fall it was just a screened porch), I have lots of options for drying/curing onions, potatoes and the like, so I often air cure them longer than most people and get storage for up to 6 or 8 months, which is not typical with sweet onions. In general, as Dixondale says, two months is about the maximum storage time for well-cured onions. I love Dixondale plants, but the weather does have to cooperate somewhat as well, or they can bolt just like any other transplants. Having said that, though, I am so happy with Dixondale's performance year in and year out that they are all I buy any more. I am going to have a really huge crop this year as well with many more onions than we ever could eat. I will chop and slice a bunch and freeze them, and I'll use some when canning salsa or making pickled products, but I still think we'll have way, way too many. I probably will take the excess to the local food bank or give them to non-gardening friends. I get a huge onion crop like this only once every three years or so, and was due for one this year. I'm glad we're having a good onion year. When hail hit my onions about a month ago, there was some fairly severe breakage to a lot of the leaves but the plants mostly bounced back very well. I usually get large onions from the intermediate types and often they are larger than the short-days as long as I am keeping them well-watered up until the point they begin bulbing up. I have almost unlimited freezer space, so I can keep and use chopped or sliced frozen onions for 2 or 3 years with no discernable loss of quality as long as I am storing them in a very cold deep freezer, and not just the freezer compartment of the refrigerator. In an erratic spring climate like ours, bolting just happens some years and it is the fault of the weather and we can't do much to prevent it, so in a good year, I like to put up and store a lot of frozen onions to use in the 'bad' years when bolting gets too many of them.
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I wear the gas permeable contact lenses and I don't find that they make any difference, except that I can see when I cut onions, LOL. Maybe the soft contact lenses cover more of the eye? Or maybe not, beats me, but my contact lenses do not help at all. I've used a wet knife, refrigerated the onion, never cut through the root. I peel under running water and I still cry, although the cold onion and a sharp knife reduces the tears the most. Woodie got me a pair of those red onion goggles and they work pretty well, which is why Ashley has confiscated them, but even with those I cry a little bit. I still use mostly fresh onions. I froze onions and even double bagged they made my whole freezer smell like onions. Now I dehydrate them, which works relatively well except that I still have to chop them all to dehydrate them! Annie
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With four young swimmers in my house, I have plenty of swim goggles so I've always just kept a pair in my kitchen cabinet and used those. I did hear a tip once that by keeping the onion in the fridge, it helps prevent the sulfenic acid in them (which is what makes you cry)from traveling through the air to your eyes. They need to be in the fridge for about an hour or in the freezer for 15 minutes. I always forget to put them in the fridge/freezer so I just use my goggles!
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I bought a pair about 6mos ago on ebay and they definitely work! I'm extremely sensitive to any onions, even the mild ones will cause me to have tears running down my face even if someone else is doing the cutting. I can now cut onions with no problems whatsoever. I do leave the glasses on for about 10min after clean up and open a window just so the left over fumes don't get me when I'm done cutting/cleaning up.
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mudlady_gw
Original Author
12 years ago
My sensitivity and reaction to the vapors are extremely severe, but I can't imagine meals without onions. I will never cut another onion without the goggles.
arley_gw
12 years ago
You can also use swimming goggles. With some of those you can have a prescription put in them as well, or an inexpensive approximation of what your precise prescription is. If you need to use bifocals or readers to cut up vegetables, read on.

To figure out what power to order, here's eyeball optics 101: If you're nearsighted (myopic), you need lenses that diverge light rays to be able to see at a distance. If you're farsighted (hyperopic) you need glasses that converge light rays. By convention, divergent lenses are 'minus' and convergent lenses are 'plus'. The power of an eyeglass prescription is measured in diopters, which is the reciprocal of the focal length in meters. A +1 diopter lens will converge parallel light rays to a focal point one meter away; a +2 diopter lens will focus parallel light rays to a focal point 1/2 meter away (reciprocal of 1/2 is 2). If you never needed glasses at all until you were forty or so, you probably started using reading glasses in the +1 to +1.5 range; as time went by you probably needed stronger ones.

If you were mildly myopic (say, -1.5 to -2.5) you've found that you can read pretty well with no glasses at all, and when you turned 45 you would just take your glasses off to read while your normal-vision cohorts had to struggle with reading glasses. If you're one of those lucky ducks, just order plain swimming goggles or onion goggles with no prescription in them.

Assuming you want the working distance from your eyes to the chopping block to be about 26 inches (I chose that distance to make the math easy--it's 2/3 of a meter, and the reciprocal of 2/3 is 3/2, or 1.5), you'd add about +1.5 diopters to your distance prescription. So if you're +1 hyperopic at distance, you'd need to order a +2.5; if you're have a -6 myopic prescription at distance, you'd need to order a -4.5 lens.

If you have significant astigmatism (1 diopter or more) you'd need to use what they call the 'spherical equivalent'. That's the algebraic sum of the spherical diopters plus one-half of the astigmatic diopters (which is listed on your prescription as 'cylinder' or 'cyl.') The easiest way to figure it out, though, might be to call up your eye doctor and ask him/her or the tech what power swimming goggles to order if you want to end up with a working distance of 26 inches.
compumom
12 years ago
Onions give me serious weepy eyes and more, but I just bought a pair of safety goggles at Home Depot and they work perfectly!
Georgysmom
12 years ago
I use to wear contact lenses and for years had no trouble with onions. My eyes have gotten better over the years and are now to the point I don't have to wear contacts. Peeling onions are no longer fun. Long before onion goggles I found if I wore these old goggles that I bought for 50 cents at a flee market, my eyes didn't tear. I wish I had marketed goggles for peeling onions, I would be rich now. Instead of wearing them, I just wear wrap around sun glasses. That works too.
goldgirl
12 years ago
mudlady - I bought them a few years after someone here recommended them. I've extremely sensitive and none of the "tricks" ever worked - instead, I'd end up in pain. Most people don't understand that some of have a stronger-than-normal reaction.

They've been a lifesaver!

Sue
chase_gw
12 years ago
I have pair courtesy of a wonderful used to be poster here and they work like a charm especially during canning season!
annie1992
12 years ago
I used to have a pair, Woodie gave them to me. Ashley now has them. (grin)

I wear hard/gas permeable contact lenses and they don't really seem to help much, so when I start canning season like chase, I'm getting them back!

Annie
dawnp
12 years ago
I have had them for a few years after seeing them on the today show. I love them and use them all the time!

Onion goggles???

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centralcacyclist

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Onion goggles???

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