Onions are a staple in every kitchen. Not only do they serve as a seasoning, but they can also prevent and treat illnesses, making them both a fine vegetable and a good medicine. Before stir-frying, you can chop them with ginger and sauté them in hot oil until fragrant. For a finished dish, you can also sprinkle raw chopped green onions to enhance the flavor. It can be said that onions are versatile, suitable for all cooking methods such as pan-frying, stir-frying, steaming, and deep-frying.
Onions are green on top and white at the bottom. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, onions have medicinal effects such as sterilization, promoting lactation, inducing urination, promoting perspiration, and aiding sleep. However, people usually only eat the white part and discard the green tops. Song Shuhui, a researcher at the Beijing Vegetable Research Center, explains that the green parts of onions contain nutrients like chlorophyll and carotenoids that are not found in the white part, so they shouldn't be easily discarded. Chlorophyll has important health benefits for the human body, such as resisting radiation, removing toxins, and strengthening muscles. Of course, if the green tops of northern scallions are old, withered, and yellow when you buy them, that part can be trimmed off.
In addition, it's also a habit that can be corrected to only eat celery stalks or the heart of radishes. Modern research shows that generally, dark-colored vegetables have higher levels of carotene, riboflavin, and vitamin C than light-colored vegetables, and they contain more phytochemicals. In the same vegetable, the vitamin content in the leaves is usually higher than in the roots and stems. For example, the vitamin content in lettuce leaves, celery leaves, and radish greens is several times higher than in their respective stems and roots. It's best to eat these vegetables with both leaves and stems. For instance, you can stir-fry celery eggs or make soup with celery leaves alone; use lettuce leaves in cold salads; eat radishes with their skin and greens. This is both nutritious and delicious.