Eat your onions!
I know that this
statement seems to have nothing to do with what follows, but bear with me . . .
The 1918 flu pandemic (the Spanish Flu) was an
influenza pandemic that spread widely across the world. Most victims were
healthy young adults, in contrast to most influenza outbreaks which
predominantly affect juvenile, elderly, or weakened patients. The pandemic
lasted from March 1918 to June 1920, spreading even to the Arctic and remote
Pacific islands. Between 50 and 100 million died, making it one of the
deadliest natural disasters in human history. An estimated 50 million people,
about 3% of the world's population (1.6 billion at the time), died of the
disease. 500 million, or 1/3 were infected.
- - World History Project
My Husby’s
grandparents, Artie J. and Ovedia Seely, weren’t affected by the disease.
One of few people that
managed to avoid it . . .
Even though every other
family in the sleepy town of Stirling, Alberta, like the rest of the world, had
one or more (or all) members sick with the deadly disease.
For months during the
worst of the outbreak in their small community, Artie and one other unaffected
man tended the farms and fed the animals for all of the other farmers.
Before daybreak every
day, the two men were feeding animals, milking cows, cleaning, tending . . .
performing all of the myriad tasks that constituted farming.
At every farm.
Every day.
It took the whole
day.
Artie would return to
his home and gulp down a hasty lunch, then head out once more.
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| Grandma Ovedia Fawns Seely Onion cooker extraordinaire! |
Returning only after
sunset to snatch a few hours of sleep before he headed out once more.
And still, with all
of the work and worry, he and his wife remained unaffected.
The reason?
Earlier that year,
the two of them, Artie and Ovedia, had harvested a bumper crop of onions.
Every meal featured
some incarnation of the remarkable vegetable.
Both of them believe
that that fact alone kept them from succumbing.
I will give them the
benefit of any doubt.
They . . . lived . . . through
it.
P.S. My Husby has
spoken with two other ‘old-timers’ who also lived through the great and
terrible influenza pandemic. They, too, maintain that their families survived due
largely to the fact that they ate onions with every meal.
You heard it here
first.
Oh, and see that onion on your plate? Eat it.
Amazing ... how worrisome a time that must have been to live through.
ReplyDeleteI love onions. To me they are a more important ingredient than salt for taste (which might be partly because they have considerable sodium in them), and the FLAVOUR!! I hope their value in avoiding illness never has to be tested, though.
Onions were all I could think about during the avian flu outbreak a couple of years ago . . .
DeleteI put onions in many of the things I cook. Between that and all the garlic I use, I should be good for another 40 years. Of course, my breath may kill off many of my friends.
ReplyDeleteMaybe that's how we avoid things. It's the breath!
DeleteMy mother was born in 1918. My grandmother told stories of the hardships. Don't know how many onions were consumed; they lived in the city.
ReplyDeleteI love to hear the stories of your family! Fortunately, onions grow everywhere!
DeleteThis is very true. Studies have been done where you cut an onion in half and just leave it sit in a room where someone is sick, and by morning, the onion turns almost black, and the sick person is better. The onion is a powerful antioxidant and it absorbs all the deadly bacteria in the air.
ReplyDeleteThat said, never eat an onion that has been left uncooked, and cut in half, just sitting on the counter for very many hours, because it is contaminated already with bacteria. Even if you put a half onion in a sealed plastic container in the fridge, it still absorbs bacteria and impurities. Don't eat it! It can be deadly.
Eat only freshly peeled and sliced or well cooked onions.
Love,
Chris
Okay, that's scary . . .
DeleteI love onions, and I know about the old wive's tale that says that, if you put an onion next to your bed at night, it will protect you from illness. Something about the sulfur in it or something. Maybe your grandma was on to something. I had no idea about the contamination that your reader mentioned above. Wow!
ReplyDeleteI'm a believer in the magic of onions. I love them. When I was pregnant with my second child, I ate fried onion sandwiches almost daily. He was born healthy and strong and remained that way ever since. Of course my others were born healthy and strong too, so maybe it wasn't the onions, but he did have more zip and zing somehow. he was the daredevil who would climb onto the fence so he could take a flying leap onto the trampoline.
ReplyDeleteOnions are rich in sulphur which is well known to be a "broom that sweeps out infection". The entire onion family including garlic and chives, leeks and shallots, is good for this.
I think I'll have a fried onion sandwich for lunch tomorrow.
Mmm . . . me too!
DeleteMy father used to eat RAW onion sandwiches. Now that was a wonderful thing to behold!
DeleteMmm . . . raw! Oh, the breath from that one!
DeleteMy FIL used to eat them with oranges. Slice of onion. Slice of orange. Couldn't quite bring myself to try it, though he munched happily and said they were delicious!
I eat them raw if they're red onions, love them in a green salad.
ReplyDeleteOh, yes, I'm with you on that ...
DeleteMe, too!
DeleteRead the excellent "Holes" by Louis Sachar for a fictional tale that includes onions as a central theme.
ReplyDelete