I own an Onion-Off little slab of metal that if I have cut something stinky with my hands, that if I rub it with this slab under cold water, the smell comes off.
This also works with a metal spoon.
I also experimented today by eating a piece of onion and then rubbing the Onion-Off on my tongue and, well, it seemed to take the taste off my tongue where I touched it. The area on the back of my tongue that I could not get the smaller than a credit card metal piece to get too that far back. Sorry, deep throat I am not.
How does this Onion off thingie work?
Are you sure this works? It doesn’t make sense. Even if the thiols (onion smell) were adsorbed by the metal (thiols - sulphur containing functional groups) there would be a huge number of the molecules still impregnated in the skin.
Onion doesnt have much taste, it has flavour - it smells. The olfactory receptors, which are not on the tongue, sense the ‘flavour’. So sticking the metal gizmo on your tounge would only stop your tounge from smelling.
You need to design a more robust experimental protocol. Put onion on all fingers, treat one finger with gizmo and get a friend to smell your fingers. Reverse the procedure with your friend acting this time as the smellee.
Then check out the following discussion we had shortly after (thread # 139!): Smells and Stainless Steel. I submitted the OP and Xray’s first contribution was post #4 (handles have been replaced with the name “Guest” in these old archives).
I wonder if Xray is still around and if she ever completed her experiments?
Sounds pretty convincing though - at least for allicin.
[bullshit] The alliin is partially oxidised by the iron to the aldehyde, allinaldehyde (or allinalda for short). This tastes great on bangers and MASH. Also the iron can initiate polymerisation of allicin to form short chain polymers, known as allicin chains.[/bullshit]
certainly the OP in that thread made a huge assumption in putting it all down to acclimation and this is easily tested by rubbing both hands with garlic, then rubbing only one of them with the metal - I’m pretty sure (I’ll test this myself tonight) that this effect is real and that the smell will be eliminated on the one hand while still very noticeable on the other.
Mangetout inspired me to do an experiment too - here is what I just found.
Rubbed onion on fingertips of one hand.
Waited 2 minutes to absorb odour
Rinsed all in cold water
Smelled fingers - all smelled
Washed 1 with cold water and SS spoon and 3 with cold water and ceramic cup, left one as a blank
Smelled fingers - none of washed fingers smelled
In order to elliminate olfactory fatigue asked Mrs antechinus to smell my fingers
Explained to Mrs antechinius what I was doing
Mrs antechinus smelled fingers - could not smell anything
conclusion: for the amount of onion that was impregnated onto fingertips, washing with cold water and any kitchen utensil was sufficient to remove odour.
Further experimentation should be performed with longer period of exposure of fingers to onion (eg make spag bol) prior to washing tests in order to differentiate efficacy of various household items at removing onion odour. Will submit grant application to Mrs antechinus for funding.
I’m confused… Do you wash your hands with the metal by having the water run over it then onto your hands? Or do you wash your hands while holding and touching the metal to parts of your hands? or what?
Buncha pikers. 