Onion in our diet

Today Mercola's website put together a summary on the benefits of eating onion. In addition to containing anti-bacterial and anti-viral ingredients, onions may suppress cancer progression. There are many research papers that have focused on quercetin, one of the active anti-cancer compounds in onions.

The question is, how do you include onions in your diet? Here is what I do:

1. Almost all my soup recipes include onions. See this spinach soup recipe, this green beans recipe, or this meatball soup recipe.

2. Most of my salad recipes call for onions. I love salads that combine fresh tomatoes, peppers, and onions. In the winter months, when the fresh tomatoes are expensive, I use the canned diced tomatoes with chopped onions, salt, and olive oil. For a potato salad, I add huge amounts of chopped red or yellow onions to boiled potatoes, and season with lemon, salt, olive oil, and black pepper. If you mix the chopped onion with the still hot potatoes, the sharpness of the onion taste will be lessened.

3. During the colder months of the year, I frequently make "plain" onion salads. The recipe is below.

Onion and olives salad

Cut the onions into small pieces, add salt and "massage" (squeeze) the mix with your hands until the onion softens. This procedure reduces the onion pungency. Add olive oil and lemon juice to taste, and your favorite olives (pitted or not). If you do not like olives, just skip them.  The salad would last a few days in the refrigerator. I keep mine in a glass jar and have a spoon or two on my toast on winter nights.