Onions - Numbers 11:5
Like its cousin, garlic, the onion is noted as a cure-all. And the folk healers hold it in high regard as far back as 6,000 years ago or more.
Although onion was only mentioned once in the Bible, it was within a list of foods with the best healing properties. Hence, its inclusion here.
Onions were considered such an important source of energy and endurance, wrote Herodotus, the Greek historian, that the Egyptian pharaohs spent nine tons of gold for onions to feed the slaves and laborers who built the pyramids. Whether of not it was an acquired taste history doesn't say. But the Jews took a distinct fondness for the onion when they followed Moses into the wilderness.
So at least 3,000 years before the birth of Christ, onions were treasured both as food and for their therapeutic value - particularly in the treatment of kidney and bladder problems. Onions have been used externally as an antiseptic and a pain reliever. They've been taken internally as a tonic to soothe intestinal gas pains and to alleviate the symptoms of hypertension, high blood sugar and elevated cholesterol.
In some countries in the Balkans, people attribute their long life to a diet that includes high concentrations of onions and yogurt.
It's said the fold remedies in many other cultures called for the juice of an onion and syrup made from honey to treat coughs, colds and asthma attacks. A tonic of onions soaked in gin or a similar distilled spirit was prescribed for kidney stones and to eliminate excessive fluids.