When you are cooking something in the oven, the chances are you’ll have wrapped it in tin foil before you put it on the shelf.
Whether it’s to keep your Christmas turkey moist or to stop your salmon sticking, tinfoil is handy to have around.
But scientists have revealed that wrapping food in the foil to cook is bad for us – and even storing cold food in foil could be harmful.
Ghada Bassioni, head of the chemistry department at Ain Shams University, explained to our source why it could be damaging our health.
She explained that pots and pans are also lined with aluminium but these tend to be ‘oxidised’ – i.e. they have a layer which prevents aluminium finding its way into our food.
Ghada writes : “While cooking your food in aluminium pots or pans isn’t a bad thing, placing it in foil and putting it in the oven is problematic.
“This is especially true with acidic or spicy food that’s prepared at high temperatures.”
“Aluminium foil is disposable and you will not be able to create that inert layer prior to using it.
“My research found that the migration of aluminium into food during the cooking process of food wrapped in aluminium foil is above the permissible limit set by the World Health Organisation."
Our bodies can excrete aluminium efficiently, but only in small amounts.
The WHO lists 40mg per kilogram of body weight as a safe intake. If you weigh around 60kg then your ‘safe’ intake would be 2400mg.
But aluminium can sneak into our diets in other ways too, you can find traces in small amounts in yellow cheese, salt, herbs, tea and spices as well as cooking utensils, it’s best to avoid unnecessary risks.
By The Editorial Team
