This might set a few alarm bells ringing but rest assured, we are here to make your life better with one improvement at a time. Onions are a thing that has largely been reserved to the kitchen for the massive improvements in flavour that they bring to our favourite dishes (whether it is served raw, caramelised or even as a soup, but did you know they can have a place on our makeup counter as well? Some people might find it off-putting because of the pungent aroma and flavour that you might get when you bite into it, but onion juice in its raw form might be an easier pill to swallow. It has been found that the ideal way to consume onions would be when they are raw since that is where their nutrient concentrations are at its peak. When you drain the onions out of their juice, you are ensuring all the nutrients are untouched while making it easier to consume without throwing up in the bin. Read on to find out how you can use onion juice to your benefit.
How To Get Onion Juice
It is as easy as it sounds. Onion juice can be very easy to obtain just with a blender in the home. How you can do it is by tossing into the blender onions that have been peeled and sliced into quarters. Some have found the addition of a teaspoon of honey or carrots alongside filtered water to turn the onion juice into something much more palatable to our senses. It can be rather hard to gauge which is the best ratio that you enjoy. If you would like a less intense flavour from the onions, the sweetness of apples or honey would do well to mask it. What you should definitely avoid is the draining of the mixture entirely as the pulp from the onions and apples are what give you a healthy amount of fibre.
Benefits Of Onion Juice
Because of how onions are high on nutrition, you can imagine how good they would be for our body. Here are a few ways you can take advantage of onion juice and improve your skin and overall health.
Helps With Inflammation
It goes without saying that this is the absolute top reason why onion juice is great for us. If you are looking to hold off those progressive and long-term issues like heart-related disease and cognitive decline, what you need to do first is to slow down the inflammatory response in your body. Because of how inflammation is the cause of some of our biggest health issues, it would certainly help you fend off the effects of ageing. In particular, it is the quercetin, selenium and organosulfide phytonutrients in onion juice that do all the good work for us. Quercetin is not often talked about but it is a strong antioxidant that combats free radicals and prevents it from inflicting damage on our cells, thereby, keeping any form of inflammation under control. Selenium is what regulates our immune response and it helps us manage chronic inflammatory conditions like arthritis or even IBD. Organosulfides are what we need to produce glutathione, an important antioxidant that gathers and binds toxin in the liver to be taken out subsequently. When the toxins are removed, there is a much lower chance of inflammation.
Much Improved Digestion
Because of how we are not going to be consuming onions or onion juice by the bucketloads, we are not going to reach the recommended daily amount of fibre each day but I am certain that every little bit of it helps. To help seal the deal, the type of fibre that is found in onion has been found to be extremely vital for our gut bacteria. In addition, onions hold a decent amount of inulin and this form of fibre is particularly enjoyed by a particular strain of bacteria in our colon called bifidobacterium and what they do is to break down our food and prevent any congestion within our colon for us to absorb our nutrients better.
Boosts Hair Growth
If you feel like your hair has been thinning of late, onion juice is a sure-fire way to help boost hair regrowth. Why it helps with hair growth is through the boosting of catalase, an antioxidant enzyme that decomposes hydrogen peroxide and making sure the hair growth cycle runs smoothly. Because of its rich sulfur content, you are almost assured of better hair since sulfur is what helps with the regeneration and nourishment of our hair follicles. That very same sulfur is also what would prevent hair thinning and breakage especially when we age. How you can utilise onion juice is by dabbing your scalp for 15 minutes before washing it off with a mild shampoo. When you do that, you stimulate your scalp and improve the blood circulation for all of the follicles to be well-nourished. Besides that, the rich antibacterial properties would ensure your scalp is healthy and clean of any infection that might hinder the growth of hair.
Combats Acne
Last but not least, onion juice has been found to help combat the effects of acne. We only have to thank the antimicrobial and antifungal properties of onion juice here since acne breakouts are motivated by inflammation. Onion extracts have been discovered to help with the appearance of our acne scars by lessening the extent to its redness and inflammation. To add on another benefit to your skin, the flavonoids and antioxidant compounds in onion juice might work to prevent those signs of premature ageing like wrinkles.