Eat or Toss?

What you see: An onion with a thick, white “core”
What it is: An especially prominent onion stem
Eat or toss: Cut around the stem area; it will be too thick and dense to eat. The rest is fine!

The story: 
While we don’t normally think of onion layers as leaves, that’s e...

What you see: Milky juice coming out of your onion as you chop
What is it: Onion juice!
Eat or toss: Eat! This is a perfectly fine onion. 

The story:
The onion plant’s ancestors likely evolved bulbs to store water and nutrients over the winter and during droughts. Fast...

What you see: A carrot with a white core
What it is: A perfectly fine, two-toned carrot
Eat or toss: Eat! 

The story:

This carrot offers a lovely lesson in xylem and phloem tissue. As you may remember from grade school science class, the xylem (which is white in this car...

What you see: Tiny, white-ringed holes in your mango
What it is: Air bubbles in trace amounts of starchy, immature tissue
Eat or toss: Eat! Depending on how much white tissue you see, you may want to eat around it

The story:
Back in June we wrote about this strange mang...

What you see: A smeary white crust on your aged cheddar. You may be paranoid that it's mold. 
What it is: Calcium lactate crystals!
Eat or toss: Eat! Like the crystals that can appear in aged Italian-style cheeses, this white crusting is harmless.

The sto...

What you see: Snowy white particles in your gin
What it is: Flavor compounds like esters and waxes that have formed clumps
Drink or toss? Drink! Nothing harmful here

The story:

Gin tastes wonderfully herbal because it’s been infused with a tea-like bundle of things like...