hi I'm chef Lisa books Williams of thrive holistic calm and pleasant in California and I'm here to show you how to prevent watery eyes when cutting up onions now many people shy away from this task because of the smell and because they don't want to get watery eyes well I'm telling you you don't need to fear the tear now I'm here to show you how to do this rather effortlessly and hopefully without shedding a tear now here are the tools that you'll need to get started now the key to doing this is making sure that you have a heavy and sharp knife now the reason you need a sharp knife is so that you can cut through the onion rather effortlessly without releasing too much of the sulfuric gasses which make our eyes teary you can either use a French knife a chef's knife or a santoku knife just make sure it's sharp you'll also want a heavy-duty wooden cutting board of course you're going to need onions now when shopping for onions you want to make sure that it has a brown intact skin and is not Genki looking additionally you're going to want to make sure that there are no soft spots or brown spots on the onion and that it is firm when you're at the root end you want to make sure that there's no mold growing and also that there's no sprout growing out of the sprout end now the key to keep your onion from bleeding the sulfuric gases which makes your eyes teary is to keep the root end intact as much as possible now we're going to cut our onion in half from the sprout end through the root end and what's important is that we maintain the root end on each half of the onion always cut your onion from the sprout end you cut it from the sprout end to be able to peel it and then you can chop your onion however you would like but remember however you decide you want to cut your onion you're always going to leave the last fourth of the root end intact one more thing that might also help prevent watery eyes when cutting an onion is to keep them in the refrigerator before you chop them now all those other things that you've heard about they don't work now to get the smell off of your hands when chopping onions it's good to rub a lemon on them but it doesn't work for your breath though that's why I recommend that you and your partner both eat onions together this is chef Lisa books Williams wishing you many blessings and joyful eating you