Onions and Mayonaise

[Justme]

I am not physically challenged when it comes to cooking, but while this is all new to me to many of the readers this is old stuff. The article was sent to me by an internet friend.


Subject: Look out for the onions

I had the wonderful privilege of touring Mullins Food Products, makers of
mayonnaise. Mullins is huge, and is owned by 11 brothers and sisters in the
Mullins family. My friend, Jeanne, is the CEO.

Questions about food poisoning came up, and I wanted to share what I learned from a chemist.

The guy who gave us our tour is named Ed. He's one of the brothers. Ed is a chemistry expert and is involved in developing most of the sauce formula.
He's even developed sauce formula for McDonald's.

Keep in mind that Ed is a food chemistry whiz. During the tour, someone
asked if we really needed to worry about mayonnaise. People are always
worried that mayonnaise will spoil. Ed's answer will surprise you.

Ed said that all commercially-made Mayo is completely safe.

"It doesn't even have to be refrigerated. No harm in refrigerating it, but it's not really necessary." He explained that the pH in mayonnaise is
set at a point that bacteria could not survive in that environment. He then talked about the quint essential picnic, with the bowl of potato salad sitting on the table and how everyone blames the mayonnaise when someone gets sick.

Ed says that when food poisoning is reported, the first thing the officials look for is when the 'victim' last ate ONIONS and where those onions
came from (in the potato salad?). Ed says it's not the mayonnaise (as long as it's not homemade Mayo) that spoils in the outdoors. It's probably the
onions, and if not the onions, it's the POTATOES. He explained, onions are a huge magnet for bacteria, especially uncooked onions.

You should never plan to keep a portion of a sliced onion. He says it's not even safe if you put it in a zip-lock bag and put it in your refrigerator.
It's already contaminated enough just by being cut open and out for a bit,
that it can be a danger to you (and doubly watch out for those onions you
put in your hotdogs at the baseball park!)

Ed says if you take the leftover onion and cook it like crazy you'll probably be okay, but if you slice that leftover onion and put on your sandwich, you're asking for trouble. Both the onions and the moist potato in a potato salad will attract and grow bacteria faster than any commercial
mayonnaise will even begin to break down.

So, how's that for news? Take it for what you will. I (the author) am going

to be very careful about my onions from now on. For some reason, I see a lot of credibility coming from a chemist and a company that produces millions of pounds of mayonnaise every year.'

Also, dogs should never eat onions. Their stomachs cannot metabolize onions

[chrisgraves]

I love onions, and will always put left over onions in a ziploc bag for use later. I will not do that anymore.
thanks for the info!

[Delsol]

Wow. Thanks Justme. I save left over onions in zip-lock bags all the time. Maybe I need to rethink that, and buy smaller onions.

[Bryon777]

oil in mayo can go rancid unless full of chemicals to prevent rancidity