Two nights ago my girlfriend was cutting up onions for a dinner dish.
I ran into the kitchen pushing her out of the way and squared up to the cutting board. I opened my eyes up as wide as they would go and lowered my face to a mere inch away from the freshly chopped onions.
I haven’t personally cooked with onions for quite some time. For most of my adult life I worn contacts which nulled one of the greatest body-food magic tricks. The crying thing with onions. When you have contacts, the contact acts as a barrier and you don’t bawl. I, having had the eye-laser sugery thing can cry now on (onion) command.
Because I’m a man and my emotional range resembles that of a toilet seat, I jumped at the chance to fake-cry. I can’t remember the last time I real-cried, and it’s kind of fun to do artificially.
I stayed in front of the onions for two solid minutes allowing the gas to penetrate through my eyeball into whatever mechanism activates the tear ducts. Sadly, these must have been lame onions because nothing happened. No crying.
That got me thinking of other food-body magic tricks you can enjoy, and I made a list.
- Onions – Okay, aside from crying, onions are great because they’ll stick around inside your skin for days. Or at least they do for me. For some reason onion juice (scientific term) collects in my T-zone and all I have to do is rub my nose and I’m bombarded with a strong onion scent. Also, it pockets inbetween my thumb and index finger in that sac of skin. I think it’s a headache pressure point, too. Anyway, you can bring out onion stink for at least 48 hours with these two techniques.
Bonus onion trick – for some reason if you don’t want your hands to smell like onions (some people are weird like this), you can rub them immediately after exposure on anything with stainless steel. Apparently the smell ions attach to the metal and away from your body.
- Sunflower Seeds – This one is simple, and I noticed it through something I would rather not discuss, but what the hey. I was eliminating my fanny a few years ago and was at the clean-up stage. I must had said my prayers the night before because the paper came back white as a snowflake on a wedding dress. My body, however, had left me a little present! A fully formed and untouched sunflower seed. I had been eating them days before. I love that it traveled all the way through untouched. Truly remarkable (tomato seeds will do this as well for those of you taking notes).
- Asparagus – Old news here, but as we’ve all learned, asparagus will make your pee smell awesome. I suspect the “awesome” descriptor is subjective. On the contrary, coffee makes urine stink like garbage. I learned this just recently after drinking a cup of coffee for the first time. I won’t be doing that again. Too stinky.
- Beets – This is an odd one. I’ve told this story before, but I’ll just give you the highlights. Eat enough beets and you’ll think you’re dying the next time you have to go to the bathroom. It turns everything red – I mean everything. Don’t freak out. It’s good for you.
- Garlic – We all know that alcohol comes out of our pores the next day, but a quiet and equally gross offender is garlic. If you go to an Argentinian steakhouse or family-style Italian joint, not only will your clothes smell like garlic death the next day, but so will your breath and skin. And garlic is not a great smell. You have to physically sweat it out of your pores by doing hardcore cardio. Just pick a remote corner of the gym and get on an elliptical.
Those are my favorite food-body magic tricks. There are others, but I’ve kind of grossed myself out for now.
