I enjoy the taste of onions, but I can’t eat them. I get heartburn and my stomach churns for hours.
It occurred to me tonight, after pulling about 732 pieces of onion out of the Dominican food I’d ordered, that if there were a pill that would allow me to eat onions without negative consequences, I’d certainly take it. Does such a thing exist?
Oddly enough, I can eat onion rings without any problem. It’s as if deep-frying cooks off whatever offends my delicate insides.
I assume you take antacids at least 30 minutes before eating, and not when heartburn starts. I too have horrible GI problems and haven’t found a passable solution. Interestingly enough, onions don’t give me gastric distress, but onion rings tend to.
Hmm…I don’t want to give what would be considered medical advice…but something like tagament, zantac, or pepsid 20-30 minutes before you eat onions might help.
Or making prilosec/prevacid a regular part of your diet.
If the problem were intestinal gas (and it sounds to me like it isn’t, but I can’t tell for sure), I’d suggest you try something like Beano or Bean-zyme. Though they’re named after beans, they also claim to help with the digestion of broccoli, cabbage, and onions.
I try to avoid eating raw onions most of the time, not because of any gastric distress they cause me, but because the taste lingers in my mouth for hours afterward. Cooked onions don’t have this effect.