Keep onions and potatoes away from fluorescent lighting, which turns them green.
To avoid teary eyes, peel onions under cold water. Water washes away volatile sulfur that causes teary eyes. Those who wear contacts tend not to be affected as much when cutting onions.
Salad onions are generally the thinning crop of sweet yellow varieties including Walla Walla Sweet, Vidalia, Maui Sweet, Texas SpringSweet and Texas 1015 SuperSweet. They will usually will be white in-store because they are picked young with their tops intact like a very large green onion.
The first Walla Walla onions were grown by Peter Pieri in the late 1800's. Many people mistakenly believe that Walla Walla onions are white. While they are white when immature, this confusion comes from misleading labeling. True "Walla Walla Sweets" are a specific variety of yellow sweet onion grown in Walla Walla Washington.
The name onion comes from the Latin, "unio" via the French "oignon" and the English "unyun." The onion plant belongs to the Allium family - the same as the narcissus (daffodils).