Experts Warn: Aluminum Foil Could Be Dangerous To Your Health

According to research, some of the foil used in cooking, baking, and grilling leaches into your food, which can pose health problems over time.

If you’re baking fish, roasting vegetables or preparing a piece of meat for dinner tonight, chances are that you’ll wrap your food in aluminum foil. What you may not realize is that some of the foil will leach into your meal - and this could be bad for your health.

Most of your aluminum intake comes from food.

However, studies show that aluminum foil, cooking utensils, and containers can leach aluminum into your food.

Ingesting a little bit of aluminum every day isn’t unusual.

After all, it can be found everywhere, from cheeses and teas to antiperspirants. Though your body is able to handle aluminum in small doses, problems can occur when you’re exposed to larger quantities…

According to the World Health Organization

Human bodies are capable of properly releasing small amounts of aluminum efficiently, so it’s considered safe to ingest 40mg per kilogram of body weight of aluminum per day. Unfortunately, most people are ingesting far more than this.

Scientists are exploring whether over-exposure to aluminum may be posing threats to human health.

For instance, high concentrations of aluminum have been detected in the brain tissue of patients with Alzheimer’s disease.

While it’s safe to wrap food in the foil, tiny flecks of aluminum are transferred to your food when you cook with it.

Ingesting too much aluminum can lead to Alzheimer’s, osteoporosis—and in severe cases, total kidney failure.

The amount of aluminum that passes into your food when cooking with aluminum foil is affected by a number of things, such as :

Temperature: Cooking at higher temperatures

Foods: Cooking with acidic foods, such as tomatoes, cabbage, and rhubarb

Certain ingredients: Using salts and spices in your cooking

However, the amount that permeates your food when cooking can vary.

The amount of aluminum you ingest when you cook food in foil goes up when you add ingredients that are acidic, like lemon.

This can actually increase the amount of aluminum you’re ingesting, transforming an otherwise healthy meal into a nightmare.

"Aluminum foil used in cooking provides an easy channel for the metal to enter the human body," the study authors wrote.

"The increase in cooking temperature causes more leaching. The leaching is also highly dependent on the pH value of the food solution, salt, and spices added to the food solutions."

Inhaling aluminum is just as bad as ingesting it in any other manner.

When inhaling aluminum, you expose yourself to pulmonary fibrosis and other complicated respiratory problems. For this reason, putting anything in aluminum and then throwing it on the grill is not advised, no matter how much it simplifies the cooking process.

How to Protect Yourself from Aluminum Foil

Do not cook with aluminum foil at all. This is the only fool-proof way to protect yourself.

Cook your foods at lower temperatures when possible.

Use non-aluminum utensils to cook your food, such as glass or porcelain dishes and utensils.

When possible, try to use parchment paper instead of aluminum foil.