Think of plugging your iPod or iPhone into a fruit or vegetable to charge the device. Sounds a bit crazy right? Well, some crazy tests have already been conducted. However, the results are not satisfactory. Wasting a dozen onions to squeeze out a mere 5 volt current isn’t good until we find a better way.

Long time back in school we all learned Chemistry lessons on how to extract ions and electrons using copper and zinc rods and inserting them into citrus fruits. I remember seeing a dim and short glow of a flashlight bulb used for the experiment. That volt for sure is not enough to charge an iPhone.

Recently, a 21 year old student in Portsmouth, Owen Louise claimed that he succeeded in charging his iPod by plugging it into an onion soaked in lucozade juice. The claim was well received; however, nothing can be accepted without proper proof.

Thanks to Jonathan Margolis for the long experiment he conducted to disprove Owen Louise. The final verdict came from Jonathan in one of his posts in MailOnline. The theory that power can be generated by soaking onion in lucozade juice is true; but charging/powering an iPod from that current is insanely untrue.

We all would love to go green, but this onion thing is going to cost all the onion that comes from Rio Grande Valley (Texas) to generate electricity for one suburb for a night maybe. Onion charging therefore is not what we expect from efficient green energy production. The iPhone and iPod need an alternative method of green charging.