Cooking Food In Tinfoil Could Be Bad For Our Health
If you have ever used tinfoil whilst cooking or preparing food, whether it be chicken for the Sunday roast or to wrap a sandwich for your lunch, you probably didn’t know the health risks associated with doing so…
Ghada Bassioni, who is the head of chemistry at the Ain Shams University, in Egypt, and team of scientists have discovered that using tinfoil could be very damaging to a person’s health.
Currently, there are links being made with Alzheimer and large amounts of aluminium found in brain tissue. High amounts of aluminium could also be a problem for brain cell growth and people with bone diseases.
Cooking foods in tinfoil allows aluminium into the food and then into the body after you eat the food. The amount of aluminium, which is in the food after being wrapped in the foil, surpasses the recommended limit of aluminium a person can consume, with little risk, set by the World Health Organisation. Using tinfoil when cooking with spicy or acidic foods has the biggest risk.
The body is able to deal with aluminium, however, this can only be done with small amounts of it but not the excessive amounts consumed with the use of tinfoil.
A safe amount of aluminium in the body would be 40mg for every kilogram you weight. This means that the average person living in the UK would be able to consume 3360mg and still be at a safe amount.
However, using tinfoil to cook is not the only way that aluminium can access the body. On top of using tinfoil, aluminium can get in the body through eating everyday foods, like yellow cheese, salt, tea and even using cutlery. These alone are small amounts of aluminium, however, once you put them all together, the amount of aluminium you consume could be very high.
Even though many pots and pans are made of aluminium, they do not pose a threat, as they have a protective layer to stop the aluminium getting into the food. So, it is safe to use them.
Did you know that tinfoil could be such a health risk and will you continue to use it or find an alternative?
