A recent study at the University of Guelph, Ontario province in Canada, has found that red onions are good at fighting cancer.
The university research team wanted to examine how effective onions grown in Ontario are at killing cancer cells. What they found was that after testing five onion types, the Ruby Ring onion variety was found to be the most effective.
Not many know that onions are superfood category. They contain one of the highest concentrations of quercetin, a type of flavonoid. Compared to onions grown elsewhere in the globe, Ontario onions have particularly high levels of the compound.
The Guelph study was conducted by Engineering professor Suresh Neethirajan and PhD student Abdulmonem Murayyan and published recently in Food Research International.
The study involved placing colon cancer cells in direct contact with quercetin extracted from the five onion varieties.
