We use onions in food a lot whether it’s in a pasta sauce, with hotdogs or in salads but, what other uses does it have?
Well, onions have been known for their medicinal purposes. From curing colds and warding off the flu to easing the symptoms that come with hay fever, headaches, blocked nose and even toothache, onion slices mixed with water apparently even help reduce acne!
As well as reducing and preventing these ailments, onions have been known to relieve discomfort received from bee stings too. I wouldn’t recommend this with wasps though as those blighters are precarious!
Now if you happen to burn yourself, whether it be on the oven door or by clamping the straightener on your fingers instead of your hair (it was extremely painful), onions are said to soothe the burn (I wish I had known this). I’m not sure if it helps in the healing of the burn or simply reduces the sting of it, but I guess it’s worth a try instead of being stuck at the sink for half an hour!
Onions have been known to make a good pesticide though. To make your own all you need is one large onion, two peppers, one whole garlic clove and half a cup of water. You also need a blender to blend it all together until it gets mushy. Once it gets to this state, pour a gallon of hot water over it and leave for 24 hours. Strain it and your pesticide will be ready to get to work!
Have you just finished painting the bedroom? Put onion slices in a bowl of water in the room, close the door and return in a few hours. The smell should have disappeared.
And if you want to get a little creative with your free time, why not make dyes with onion skins? This is a perfect, easy way to create orange (white skins) or purple (red skins) dyes. Simply place the skins in a pot with water and let them simmer for about an hour.
Are you prone to burning/ overcooking rice? I read somewhere that placing a cut onion in with the rice for about 10 minutes takes away the burnt taste…
And if you’re not prepared and you run out of de-icer for that upcoming frosty morning, you can keep your windshield from frosting over by rubbing an onion on it the night before!
And please, if this last use for an onion works, please let us know the details because; if you suffer with baldness, there might well be a cure!
Simply rub your bald patch with an onion. The juice supposedly encourages thicker hair growth.