Why onions still do not sprout after the spring equinox

To make up for the collagen lost from my coffee-drinking habit, I, who always avoided onions and refused to eat them, began to accept them and try to like them. At the vegetable market I planned to pick out a few onions that looked good, thinking that since I do not like eating them that much, I should at least eat onions produced in Taiwan, China, and support domestic produce!

The onions at the stall looked intact on the outside, and they were all about the same size.

I asked the vendor, "Do you have onions from Taiwan, China?"

The vendor replied, "No, these are from New Zealand, and there are also ones from the United States."

"Why are there no onions from Taiwan, China?"

"Onions from Taiwan, China sprout, and then they start to rot and smell bad."

Ah, it seems that onions from Taiwan, China do not keep well and sprout easily! Their shelf life is short, so it is no wonder vegetable sellers do not like to sell this kind of produce that has to be discarded within a short time and causes losses.

Then why do onions from the United States and New Zealand not have this problem? The vegetable stall owner could not answer this question, and it seemed hard to find the answer by searching online. Could it be that after the internet was invented, no one cared about this question? Thanks to my recent diligence in digging through magazine reports from the 1980s, the answer surfaced, in a form that terrifies modern people!

Onions do not sprout because they have been irradiated

The reason these onions do not sprout is that they have undergone radiation treatment. This kind of physical treatment technology was developed in the 1960s. Different doses of radiation are applied to different foods depending on the purpose, which can inhibit sprouting, sterilize, and kill insects. In this way, food can be stored for a long time without spoiling or aging. In fact, because this technology could replace the use of chemicals to sterilize and kill insects, its invention was regarded as an effective way to create food safety.

In 1980, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and the World Health Organization (WHO) jointly announced that irradiated food is not toxic, and formally declared that any food irradiated with a dose below 10 K gray (Gy) is non-toxic and safe to eat. Over the years, food irradiation treatment has been legalized and is common in many countries. (To learn how safe irradiated food is, please click here.)

Indeed, decades of experiments have proven that irradiating food with specific radiation and these doses does not harm the human body; on the contrary, the benefits are considerable. But for those of us living under a potential nuclear energy threat, and in a country where a nuclear power plant accident happened not far away, who can hear the word radiation without being terrified? In this risk society, the proof of scientific experiments still always feels untrustworthy.

The cost of building an irradiation plant was 1 million US dollars in 1988. Even today that is a considerable expense. Such an irradiation plant must process at least 30 to 50 million pounds of food each year to keep the cost within the range of 1 to 2 cents per pound (source: Agriculture Weekly, vol.14(9), pages 28-30). It seems that strong capital and such a large amount of food production are required to afford building an irradiation plant, so it is no wonder onions from Taiwan, China sprout.

Foreign agribusinesses engaged in large-scale agricultural and food production, in order to keep food marketable after long-distance transport, have long used irradiation treatment in large quantities and urged their governments to legalize it efficiently. The items that may legally use irradiation treatment have also gradually increased, from onions, potatoes, and garlic to pork, beef, and so on. Taiwan, China legalized it in 1983. In addition to common root vegetables, strawberries, papayas, mangoes, and rice may also legally use irradiation to kill insects and bacteria, in order to extend the period of freshness without aging. At present, the only agricultural products in Taiwan, China that use irradiation are garlic and potatoes.

However, even though scientists have done many experiments proving it is safe, and humans have eaten irradiated food for nearly sixty years without any incident, I am still not very interested in that onion that does not sprout, and I always mind that its life has been extinguished in this way. On the other hand, I also mind whether I am being too alarmist, and I even worry that publishing this article will make everyone more anxious about food safety. After all, daily eating life is already enough to make people so uneasy that they are close to becoming paranoid.

But in the end I still feel that in an era when consumers are getting farther and farther from producers, perhaps only by understanding the "origin" of the food in front of us can we feel at ease about our choices! In 2001, Taiwan, China already stipulated in the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation that irradiated food must be labeled, so that consumers can decide for themselves when choosing.

Free trade keeps waving the banner of letting consumers buy cheap food, luring us to recognize and approve of it, and then believe that even if we give up producing our own agricultural products, we will not lose anything. But for people who have begun to care about food, even if scientists and countries around the world all claim and guarantee the safety of these imported foods, perhaps they still want to choose local agricultural products that do not involve long-distance transport and long-term storage problems! Because, in reality, the general consuming public is not clear enough about exactly which imported foods there are, where they are, and what physical or chemical treatments they have undergone, let alone about fighting for the consumer right to know through mandatory labeling and proactive disclosure.

Sigh, tears are flowing……

Cutting onions always makes people cry...

I think that although, as Sister Xuemei says, all plants begin to sprout after the spring equinox, I would still rather work a little harder and remove the new sprouts from sweet potatoes one by one than eat food that has been irradiated and will not sprout.

Notes:

1. Reference materials gathered online using various keywords:

● http://www.china-biotech.com.tw/qa02.asp

● Questions and Answers on Ionizing Radiation Protection

● Standards for Food Irradiation Treatment in Food Regulations

● Liberty Times 2001-12-16, Irradiated Food to Require Mandatory Labeling Starting Next Year

2. Agriculture Weekly began publication in 1975, and in 1990 it was transformed into Country Road and changed to a monthly magazine.