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You shouldn't use aluminum foil with tomato/lemon/vinegar/brined foods or as "grilling packets" (direct fire/high heat) because of leaching risk.

There's no concern with using aluminum in most cases (with dry/non-acidic foods) but leaching is a real problem with acidic/salty/wet/high eat.

by kragen1 hours ago|

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Let's see if this is a quantitatively plausible concern.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_chloride says orl-rat LD₅₀ of AlCl₃ is 380mg/kg, which is 20.2% aluminum by weight, so that's 77mg/kg of soluble aluminum ions. If this toxicity is due to soluble aluminum ions (rather than, say, acidity), and rats and humans are about equally sensitive to aluminum toxicity, you'd need about 3.8g of aluminum to kill a 50kg human, the ionized equivalent of 1.42mℓ of aluminum metal (at 2.71g/cc). That's 1420cm² of 10μm aluminum foil completely dissolved in the food.

Presumably you would get significant toxic effects well before reaching the lethal dose, so it would be wise to avoid exposures larger than a few tens of cm² of aluminum foil completely dissolved in your food. So it seems like the concern at least passes the first smoke test of plausibility: the total amount of aluminum present in a "grilling packet" is at least sufficient to worry about.

(Fortunately, aluminum rapidly becomes inert in the body, so we don't have to be concerned about gradual poisoning the way we do with lead and arsenic.)

The crucial question, then, is how fast the foil corrodes under cooking conditions! If it corrodes (and migrates into the food) at a micron or more per hour, then this could be a serious concern. But, if the corrosion rate is more like microns per month or microns per year, the dose wouldn't be high enough to worry about.

The fact that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_toxicity redirects to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_toxicity_in_people_o... suggests that this is at least not a recognized concern.

by Bender10 minutes ago|

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How long does it take to leave the body?

by badc0ffee1 hours ago|

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What is the leaching risk, though? If aluminum does get in your food, is it bad for you in a specific way, or is it more like iron?

by jacobgold1 hours ago|

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Like most metals, excess aluminum in your diet is almost certainly bad for you.

EFSA full review: animal studies show nervous-system effects from aluminum exposure. https://efsa.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.2903/j.efsa....

CDC/ATSDR: oral risk levels are based on neurological effects seen in exposed animals. https://wwwn.cdc.gov/TSP/ToxProfiles/ToxProfiles.aspx?id=191...

by a_conservative1 hours ago|

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Aluminum is generally thought to be benign by most authorities.

However, it is worth noting that humans were not exposed to aluminum in the environment until relatively recently, when we started extracting it from bauxite and melting it.

by kragen26 minutes ago|

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Aluminum is a major component of all soils, and soluble aluminum salts have been used in medicine and dyeing since ancient Greece, probably since ancient Egypt. They have been used in food preparation for at least several centuries.

by IsTom1 hours ago|

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Pure aluminium maybe not, but it's a major component of clay.

by Perz1val1 hours ago|

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I put aluminium foil over a bowl of pizza dough, as it grew the top touched the foil and in a few spots tiny holes appeared in the foil. I wonder if it was carbonic acid or what

by manwe15019 minutes ago|

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It probably formed a weak battery electrode with the bowl and electro-deposited it on the substrate (pizza). Happens often with tomato sauces, like lasagnas.

by br0ceph3 hours ago|

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i heard aluminum food containers are often coated with toxic liners, like plastics, bpa, and pfas. If Alzheimers isnt a risk with pure aluminum metal, id say those liners are a huge risk. Are kitchen foils coated? Im pretty sure cans are most of the time.

by badc0ffee2 hours ago|

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"Plastic" in general isn't toxic as a liner. It's used in plumbing, and in zillions of containers for potable water and foods. When you get food from even a nice restaurant, they probably marinate meat in a plastic container, and squeeze fruit juice into a plastic container. They sous vide items in plastic.

I've also never heard of a plastic/Alzheimer's connection, only one claimed with aluminum.

by br0ceph1 hours ago|

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i didnt mean those contaminents cause Alzheimers, just that its a risk to general health. food grade plastic is not considered toxic at these doses, but u def dont want it in your body if u can avoid it within reasonable effort. i use freezer bags made from plastic , and reuse plastic ziplocs from some food stuffs i buy to marinate meat, its really convenient to be able to remove the air and have the marinade fully coat the food. i reuse plastic water bottles until i forget them somewhere. im def using plastic to store food. i eat canned food too, and most of the cans mention something about their liner safety right on the can. bpa-ni is interesting, in that they say they dont intentionally use bpa liner, but bpa could still be there, wtf , how are u so unsure as a manufacturer to what ur inputs are on a factory made can. that being said, im not storing food in there for years, only hours when i use plastic in my own processes. plastic in can liners often holds food for years, and the expiration date of canned food is often many years after the food is manufactured and canned.

by ceejayoz3 hours ago|

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I've only seen people concerned with it in antiperspirants, where it's a salt. (And to be clear, I think it's BS.)

As with NaCl, it's at least possible that the salt and the pure-ish variant aren't quite the same thing.

by jagged-chisel3 hours ago|

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1) all of them

2) glass dish

by badc0ffee2 hours ago|

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I use a glass/Pyrex dish, but put foil on top. I guess you could use a fitted glass lid instead, depending on the container.