Do You Ever Cook With Aluminum Foil? If So, Read This

All over the world, people use accessories to help them prepare tasty meals in the kitchen. From budget-friendly tin foil to very expensive ceramic knives, there’s no end to the number of tools that a home cook keeps within reach.

Aluminum foil is a pantry staple in most homes. It is versatile, easy, and makes clean-up a breeze. Foil can cover up casseroles or make the most perfect baked potato.

Yet, if you cook with this kitchen tool, there’s something you need to know. It’s very probable that you’ve never even heard this before.

Simply put, it’s dangerous to your health.

Bad For Your Brain

Aluminum is neurotoxic heavy metal that has long been linked to Alzheimer’s disease. Exposure to this toxin can lead to declines in coordination, memory, and balance. Sadly, for many who are afflicted, permanent memory loss also creates a huge metaphorical gap with loved ones that can never be bridged. It’s hard to maintain bonds with someone who doesn’t even remember you.

Bad For Your Bones

This toxic metal tends to build-up in your bones as well. It competes directly with calcium for space in your bones, and guess who wins this tug-of-war? While an aluminum skeletal frame might sound like something every budding bionic woman would want to have, our bodies are not made of science fiction. It needs calcium to keep our hips from breaking in a simple fall.

Bad For Your Lungs

Inhaling aluminum can lead to respiratory problems, including pulmonary fibrosis. If you grill with aluminum foil, you can be left with a pair of unhealthy lungs.

How does this heavy metal even make it into your body? Drinking soda from aluminum cans or using deodorant with aluminum have long been blamed as common sources. Somehow tin foil has been overlooked as a major cause.

Eating Aluminum Flakes

No one actually breaks off piece of foil and chews it with reckless abandon, unless you have a strange eating affliction, or you happen to be a cat playing with a rolled up ball of foil.

Yet, that’s exactly what your’e doing when you cook with this foil at high temperatures. It doesn’t matter if you’re baking or grilling, the heat creates tiny cracks in the metal that can break off and flake into the food. The pieces are so miniscule, you may not realize that it’s hiding in there.

Chemical Leaching

Even if little bits of metal don’t break off, you can still inadvertently cause chemical leaching of aluminium when you cook with certain spices, or with acidic foods like lemons.

Dr Essam Zubaidy, a chemical engineering researcher at the American University of Sharjah, discovered that just one meal cooked with tin foil can leach 400 mg of aluminum.

The higher the temperature, the more the leaching. Foil is not suitable for cooking and is not suitable for using with vegetables like tomatoes, citrus juice or spices.

According to the World Health Organization, the daily maximum safe ingestion level should be no more than 60 mg.

Inhaling Metals

You don’t even have to accidentally eat this metal in order to become innundated with its toxins. You’re at risk of inhaling little bits of aluminum if you don’t cover your nose and mouth when you’re near the grill.

Grilling foods creates smoke, and if your food is wrapped in foil, you can accidentally sniff lightweight aluminum flakes as it’s being carried away with the smoke. Yikes!

It’s clear that this heavy metal is hazardous to your health. With that in mind, there are a few precautions you’ll need to take in order to protect yourself.

1. Don’t cook food with aluminum foil. Period! Only use it to store cold foods in the fridge. A better alternative would be to use glass and ditch the tin foil altogether.

2. Don’t store spices, tomatoes or citrus fruits in foil. Ever! The acids will leach aluminum into your food.

3. Ditch the aluminum cookware. The pots and pans have to go! As soon as you can, invest in stainless steel pots and pans. You may even be able to find some at your local thrift store.

4. Whenever possible, use parchment paper instead of aluminum foil.

I never knew about these dangers. I’m going to reduce my use of aluminum foil right away. Are you?

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