♪♪ >> Hi I'm Paul Robins and here's something you may not have known about agriculture.

Every time I talk about onions, it brings a tear to my eye.

Oh, it has nothing to do with emotions, it's all chemistry, but more on that later.

Eat them on hamburgers, hot dogs, in soups, stews, you name it, onions are a tasty addition to any meal and they have been since the dawn of time.

When early man first walked the earth, he was probably toting onions to add to his meal of sabre toothed tiger.

Some historians claim that onions were the first vegetable to make it to the dinner table.

And whether they were harvested wild or cultivated, cultures around the world dined on onions thousands of years ago.

Onions were highly thought of by the ancient Egyptians who believed the onion's spherical shape and concentric rings symbolized eternal life.

Roman gladiators were rubbed down with onions to firm up their muscles.

Fast forward to 1492 and our old friend, Christopher Columbus brought varieties of cultivated onions here to the New World.

Throughout history many cultures have used onions for medicinal purposes believing them to have anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties.

But let's get back to my tears.

Why do some folks cry when they slice an onion?

Well, slicing breaks down cells in the onion walls releasing chemicals into the air that aggravate your eyeballs.

Some folks claim that chilling inhibits the enzymes from activating.

And if you want another trick?

Use a fan to blow the gas away from your face when you slice.