To see what difference it made, I split an onion in half,
slicing each of the two halves in different ways, then
placed the onion slices in identical covered containers and
let them sit for 10 minutes on the counter before opening
them and taking a whiff. There was no doubt that the
orbitally sliced onion was stronger, giving off the
powerful stench of White Castle dumpsters and bad dates.
When cooked into a recipe like a sauce or a soup,
orbitally sliced onions also have an inferior texture—they
come out tougher and wormy. With rare exception, I use
pole-to-pole-sliced onions for all applications.
Dicing an onion is a task you’re going to do many, many,
many times, so you’d better get used to it.