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Why is it that (in the Hare Krishna movement) you do not eat onions and
garlic?

After all they are vegetables, are they not? One can understand the
prohibition against meat-eating. But what is wrong with eating garlic and
onions? Surely there's no more violence committed when we eat an onion than
when we eat a potato.

Answer:

In the Kurma Purana it is said:  "One should avoid eggplant, plantain,
safflower, asmantaka, onion, garlic, sour cereal, and the sap of trees."

palandu lasunam sigrum alambum grjanam palam
bhunkte yo vai naro brahman vratam candrayanam caret

(Padma Purana, Brahma Khanda 19.10, spoken by Suta Gosvami)

O sages, one who eats garlic, onions, sigrum (a kind of plant), turnips,
bottle gourd and meat, that person should observe a candrayana fast.

vrntakam jalisakam kusumbha smantakam tatha
palandu lasunam suklam niryasan caiva varjayet
grjanam kinsukan caiva kukundanca tathaiva ca
udumbaram alavun ca jagdhva patati vai dvijah

(Hari Bhakti Vilasa 8.158,159, from Kurma Purana)

One should not eat eggplant, banana leaves, sunflower leaves and asmantaka
leaves, onions or garlic. One should not eat sour gruel (a thin watery
porridge) or the juice of the tree. One should also give up turnips and
beetroots, carrots, kinsuka, forest figs, and white pumpkin. If the twice
born persons eat these things, they all become fallen.

(It is true our acaryas do not follow the strict standard mentioned above
in all circumstances but they do follow the injunction not to eat onions
and garlic. Even then on one occasion for the sake of preaching Srila
Prabhupada did eat some onion which was mixed in the sabji so as not to
offend the host who had not been informed of the proper standards.
Prabhupada approved also the use of carrots)

palandulasunadini jagddhva candrayanam caret
sraddhe devanpitrnprarcya khadanmamsah na dosabhak

By eating garlic and onion one becomes sinful and as atonement one should
perform Candrayana. (Garuda Purana 1.96.72)

Onion, stool-thriving pigs, Selu, garlic, Goplyusa (milk of a cow before
the lapse of ten days from calving), Tanduliya (a grain growing in faecal
rubbish) and mushrooms - all these are to be avoided. (Skanda Purana 40.9)

The householder taking the rite shall avoid heavy indigestible pulses like
Nispava, Masurika etc., stale food, defiled food, brinjals, gourds,
cocoa-nuts, garlic, onion, intoxicating beverages and all kinds of meat.
(Siva Purana 7.10-12)

(But) he should avoid stalks of lotuses, safflower, gold or silver, onion,
garlic, sour gruel, a thick fluid substance; so also chatraka (a kind of
mushroom), vidvaraha, greasy milk of a cow during the first seven days of
calving, vilaya (a particular product of milk) and mushrooms. By eating the
small red variety of garlic, blossoms of kimsuka, a gourd, so also
udumbara, bottle-gourd, a twice-born becomes fallen. (Padma Purana Vol. 42,
4.56.19b-24)

I shall now mention those things that should always be avoided in Sraddha.
Garlic, onions, globular radish and Karambha (groats or flour mixed with
curds), and other articles devoid of smell and with no taste should be
avoided in Sraddha. The reason is also mentioned (as follows): Formerly in
the fight between devas and asuras, Bali was defeated by suras. From his
wounds drops of blood gushed out and from them these articles grew up -
hence they are avoided in the Sraddha rite. (Varaha Purana 16.11b-15)

Manu-samhita:

5.5. Garlic, leeks and onions, mushrooms and (all plants), springing from
impure (substances), are unfit to be eaten by twice-born men.

5.19. A twice-born man who knowingly eats mushrooms, a village-pig, garlic,
a village-cock, onions, or leeks, will become an outcaste.


Source: This five part series was extracted from a comprehensive
compilation by His Holiness Janananda Gosvami Maharaj - to support Srila
Prabhupada's statements about them.