substitute for onion

I think in the past people kept quite about stuff that made them burp! My stepfather has never been able to eat onions or peppers - which made my life very hard as I realised that having been brought up on a Mediterranean diet, most of my dishes were based on them. As were my poor mother's of course.

What is it with this intolerance to onion? Its new to me and at present its just the raw or lightly cooked stuff. However, it only needs to be a tiny bit of say, raw chopped chive, and I'm burping all day and feeling what I call 'polluted'. As I'm new to it I forget and the other day had a very small amount of homemade coleslaw in a lovely little health food café and felt really uncomfortable all day. I am considering getting a tattoo to remind me!!!

My mother couldn't eat onions. She substituted them for leeks. This worked very well for her.

Leeks everytime as a substitute so much easier to disgest have you thought about garlic powder I use it in most recipe's and omit onion altogether.

I have a friend who is allergic to all forms of onion - she just uses leeks.

A bit of leek- chives, or perhaps shallotts?

My sister has the same problem, she loves onions though so she boils and drains them. For about 10 mins or until soft. Then chops and adds. She does the same with garlic. Leek isn't as bad, she says, but chives she can manage raw.

I think there are plenty of soups, especially vegetable ones, where there is no desperate need for onion. I don't think you'd miss it in a mushroom soup or a minestrone, and I'm sure I used to make a sweetcorn chowder that was mainly potato and sweetcorn with no onion at all. French Onion soup might be a problem - but you can't win them all

You may find that using leeks as an alternative would be OK. Also, dried onions can work. I have family members with the same problem, but can tolerate those alternatives.

A friend of mine has the same problem but she finds if she cuts the onion in half and puts it in like that then removes the onion before she eats anything..