Is Colour Relevant When Choosing Onions?

When buying and choosing onions for cooking, we sometimes find it difficult to choose which ones to use. Onions come in three main colours; white, yellow and red. The yellow and red types are the ones that are usually more commonly used. Read more about the health benefits of onions here.

Onions have almost the same nutritional values no matter what the colour is, so onions have similar carbohydrates, minerals, vitamins, fiber and other nutritional content.

Natural food or plant colours denote the presence of phytochemicals which are responsible for colour, taste and smell. Phytochemicals occur naturally in plants and have a lot of health benefits and antioxidant properties. Red and yellow colours of onions indicate that one variety has more of some phytochemicals more than the other.

White or no colour denotes the presence of allicin which is present in all onion family and the presence of antioxidants flavonoids like quercetin and kaempferol. Allicin has anti-tumour properties.

Red/purple colour indicates the presence of anthocyanins and lycopenes which are believed to protect

against heart disease thinning the blood and preventing the formation of blood clots. They improve memory, reduce the risk of urinary tract infections and slow the growth of cancer cells in the liver and colon.

Yellow colour indicates the presence of sulfur.

The higher the pungency of the onion, the higher the levels of antioxidants present. White onions are the mildest, followed by yellow, with the red ones being the most pungent. The stronger the onion, the more the protection they offer against cancer. If you are using onions for health, it is definitely better to go for the ones that are more pungent.

Onions are very healthy ingredients that we need for more than cooking. Most of the nutrients in onions are present in the outermost layers so it is necessary to prevent over-peeling in order not to lose most of the nutrients. No matter the colour, onions have important nutrients for promoting wellness and health.

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