The Surprising Health Benefits of Onion Husk

Ready for tea?

Have you thought about onion husk as a health and wellness benefit to our bodies?

Onions have been around for a long time and have been used for their medicinal properties for centuries.

Onions have been proven to be beneficial and we use them a lot in everyday cooking and baking. They are readily available. Most of the time I have been just composting the onion husk until about a month ago when I found out that the husk has wonderful health benefits. I started to look into the research and found that it is true. I stopped wasting the husks and started to make tea out of them each time I had a leftover husk from cooking.

Surprising research reveals that the husk contains multiple vitamins, has antioxidant, and anti-inflammatory effects as well as can support and help regulate our immune system.

Research has been done by Akash and colleagues in 2014 Spice plant Allium cepa: Dietary supplement for treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus showed the benefits of onions in diabetes and lowering lipids. Last year in 2021 research by Chernukha and colleagues Antioxidant effect of ethanolic onion (Allium cepa) husk extract in aging rats and Marefati and colleagues A review of anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and immunomodulatory effects of Allium cepa and its main constituents both proved the beneficial effects of onion husk.

Chernukha et al. describe that the multiple vitamins in the onion husk include B1, B2, B3, B6, B9, vitamin H (biotin) and vitamin C. Onion husk also contains phytochemicals like flavonoids which are the highest in yellow onion husk providing antioxidant benefits.

Since I found out about the health benefits, I have been experimenting with onion husk tea. I pour hot water over the husk. I use about 1 cup of water over a ½ of an onion’s husk. I tried to add the onion parts too but the flavor then become too oniony. Now I am staying just with the husk. I mostly use the husk from the yellow onion. Occasionally from red onion. I also added lime and Meyer lemons to the onion husk tea and the flavor is wonderful. It tastes like a gentle lemon or lime tea.

I highly recommend for everyone try this simple yet beneficial tea from onion husks. Alternatively, the husk can be ground into a powder and added to any type of food. If the husk is boiled too long, it will lose the health benefits similar to vegetables.

Thank you for reading my story. I hope you will try out this simple tea and let me know what you think.

More details on the research can be found here

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References

Akash M.S.H., Rehman K., Chen S. Spice plant Allium cepa: Dietary supplement for treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus. Nutrition. 2014;30(10):1128–1137. doi: 10.1016/j.nut.2014.02.011 Retrieved 10/1/2022 from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25194613/

Chernukha, I., Fedulova, L., Vasilevskaya, E., Kulikovskii, A., Kupaeva, N., & Kotenkova, E. (2021). Retrieved 10/1/2022. Antioxidant effect of ethanolic onion (Allium cepa) husk extract in ageing rats. Saudi journal of biological sciences, 28(5), 2877–2885. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sjbs.2021.02.020.

Marefati, N., Ghorani, V., Shakeri, F., Boskabady, M., Kianian, F., Rezaee, R., & Boskabady, M. H. (2021). Retrieved 10/1/2022. A review of anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and immunomodulatory effects of Allium cepa and its main constituents. Pharmaceutical biology, 59(1), 287–302. https://doi.org/10.1080/13880209.2021.1874028

Science Direct. Phytochemical. Retrieved 10/1/2022 from https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/phytochemical