Onions are a great source of fructooligosaccharides that are a natural prebiotic that beneficial bacteria of our gut microbiome feed on.
Having read about this I have started eating raw onions but they can be nasty, as for boiled onions – that's kind of easier for me yet nobody likes them anyway, some people actually find it easier to eat onions raw and just find boiled onions disgusting.
So I have ended up seeking a healthy-tasty ways to cook them.
I've found a scientific papers by Roberto Vega and Zuniga-Hansen (http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foodchem.2014.10.119) that says the percent of retention of sc-FOS is greater than 95% at temperatures above 95 °C yet it doesn't seem to make it clear how far above 95 °C can we go.
Olive oil smoke point is 160°C. Is sautéeing onions at near this temperature ok if saving the fructooligosaccharides is what I want?
Best Answer
To give some perspective on FOS (fructooligosaccharides) denaturation characteristics to sucrose (for a baseline since sucrose is a common molecule),
Source: https://www.ukessays.com/essays/biology/chemical-structure-of-fructooligosaccharides-biology-essay.php
This is comparing the FOS (fructooligosaccharides) to normal sucrose. Specifically, this mentions that the thermal stability is greater than sucrose.
If sucrose has a decomposition temperature of 186°C (367 °F), when it starts to form caramelized onions, then it is safe to assume that you will be able to fry your onions in olive oil with a smoke point of 160°C without denaturing the FOS since FOS has a greater thermal stability.
Source for decomposition temperature of sucrose: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucrose