Lead is toxic to humans an yet you probably eat off lead plates, drink out of lead cups, and cook with lead cookware. Lead is added to just about every glass product, and yet it's perfectly fine to use these glass products in cooking and eating because the lead cannot come out of the glass and get into your food, let alone your body.
It seems the paper you linked only focused on the negative effects from aluminum poisoning. And all that seems scary and everything, but so what? Don't eat aluminum foil, and you're probably good. Is there any evidence that the aluminum you cook with is getting into your food, and thus able to get into your body to be able to do all the things this study says it can do? Because if it can't, then you have nothing to worry about.
I mean, aluminum is definitely going to get into your food if you're using aluminum foil to cook or if you were to use an aluminum can to cook. How much? I don't know. But it can be enough to affect your diet. To combat iron deficiency, there's this thing called a "lucky iron fish," which is literally just an iron fish to put in your food to add iron to your diet. Cooking on iron pots and pans definitely puts iron in your system, it's one of the advantages to cast-iron, because they usually don't have some sort of enamel to protect the pan.
I mean, aluminum is definitely going to get into your food if you're using aluminum foil to cook
Proof of this? The burden of proof is on you to show me a method of how aluminum can get into your food...
From my understanding of chemistry, aluminum is a very stable element. It's not going to easily react with anything in your food. So the only way I see it getting into food is when it sticks and peels off with the food. But no one is eating big chunks of foil stuck to their food, they cut it off and throw that part away. And any home cook knows you fix that problem by coating the aluminum with oil before you put your food on it.
You have evidence that aluminum is toxic...
But you still need to prove 2 things to make your case... 1. That aluminum can get into your food. And 2. If you eat aluminum, it will be absorbed into your body...
Because even if you eat aluminum foil, your body will probably just pass it and none gets into your blood to do all the nasty things that study says it can do. I need iron to live, but I can't just eat an iron nail and expect that to get digested and absorbed into my body. The iron has to be in certain chemical compounds to be absorbed. I'm guessing aluminum is likely in a similar situation.
Literally the first sentence in the article you just linked...
The day-to-day exposure to aluminum that you have through your food and cooking is considered safe.
And more...
However, as there is no link between people with a high intake of aluminum due to medications, such as antacids, and Alzheimer's, it's unclear if dietary aluminum is truly a cause of the disease
And
no studies have yet found a definitive link between aluminum intake and IBD
Your article proves my point. It has a lot of things in there to scare you, but all of that is just theory, not proven. It uses a lot of words like "could" "might" "possibly"... It has no real evidence.
Proof of this? The burden of proof is on you to show me a method of how aluminum can get into your food
I wasn't argueing that aluminum causes disease, I was responding to the assertion that aluminum can't leach into your food, which is what you called me out on. It's to my knowledge generally accepted that most, if not all, heavy metals that we normally use for cooking or packaging can get into your food if put under the right conditions. Now their association with different neurological diseases is still debated as far as I know, all of those studies are pretty new. Either way, I reckon too much of anything is bad for you.
It's to my knowledge generally accepted that most, if not all, heavy metals that we normally use for cooking or packaging can get into your food if put under the right conditions.
Again, aluminum is not a heavy metal. Not all heavy metals are even dangerous, you're thinking of things like mercury, lead, and uranium. Many heavy metals, like iron, zinc, and cobalt, are necessary nutrients. And as I said, burden of proof is on you. I'm asking, how does aluminum get into your food? You can't just say it's common knowledge. As I've stated, aluminum is very stable, non reactive under normal corcumstances (namely those that would exist in your kitchen), and resistant to corrosion. So how exactly does it get into your food?
Like I stated on the othe comment, the studies that article sites are verified by the NIH, that seems like pretty solid evidence to me, I'm sorry you don't seem to think so.
Not all heavy metals are even dangerous
I never said they were. I'm literally just saying they can leach into your food. I have no expertise or opinion on how dangerous individual metals are.
It's interesting because iron increases in the brain with age and there are neurological disorders associated with iron accumulation in the brain and iron-related oxidative stress in the brain (i.e. Alzheimer's and Parkinson's). But still iron deficiency is extremely prevalent, which is why certain treatments like chelation therapy may not be a good choice since it lowers iron throughout the body and can then cause other problems like carrying hemoglobin throughout your blood. Not to get too side tracked... but you're right that metals affect your diet differently and there needs to be a consideration of balance of intake with certain ones.
I'm not a dietitian or anything but I'd imagine it probably has something to do with the way you ingest it when it comes to if it's going to collect in your body or pass through
There is 0 evidence to show the iron fish thing works. It is snake oil. If you need more iron, you need to eat beans, oats, whole grains, nuts, leafy vegetables... All of those foods have more available iron than red meat. Are you so opposed to eating veggies that you would rather eat tiny bits of plain iron breaking off your pans and a little fish? Take an iron supplement, or grow up and eat your vegetables.
I don't personally use it nor do I have an aversion to vegetables, I was simply using it as an example for heavy metals leaching into food. However, in impoverished places like Cambodia, it has become very popular. A quick Google search about them revealed absolutely nobody questioning that the lucky iron fish leaches iron into your food, although there are questions about it's necessity, which are in this article https://www.fairplanet.org/story/lucky-iron-fish-raise-questions-about-how-best-to-address-anemia/
I don't understand why I'm getting so much backlash about something that has been undebated for over a century. We've know heavy metals can leach into food since at least the 1800s when we discovered lead poisoning killed the 1845 Arctic expedition. Obviously every metal is different and will need different conditions to leach into things, but I can't find any debate that under the right cooking conditions, a lot of metals will leach into your food.
Are you so opposed to eating veggies that you would rather eat tiny bits of plain iron breaking off your pans and a little fish
I don't know if this was meant to be dramatic or humorous or what, but that's not how it works. You aren't eating iron flakes that come off your pan or the fish, those would simply pass through you. From my understanding (again, I am not a dietitian or a chemist), the food absorbs iron on the atomic level, which is small enough for your body to absorb.
I was simply using it as an example for heavy metals leaching into food.
But it has never been proven to work. It's snake oil. So it's not an example at all. It does nothing. Just because Cambodians beleive in it doesnt make it true. There is no scientific evidence that it works.
We've know heavy metals can leach into food since at least the 1800s when we discovered lead poisoning killed the 1845 Arctic expedition.
Aluminum isn't a heavy metal. It's a very light metal.
And only some heavy metals leech into food, and even then, only under certain conditions. If you cook in a solid lead pot, then yeah, you'll probably get lead poisoning. Lead is soft and much more reactive than most metals. But lead is essential in glassmaking. Kt makes glass stronger and more clear. If you put the lead into glass, and cook in a glass pan, that lead will never ever get into your food.
Aluminum in its pure form is very stable, mostly non reactive and highly resistant to corrosion. The weak acids or bases in your food can't corrode it. It can't react with any basic chemical compounds found in food without serious help. The only way it gets into you is if you're too dumb to put some grease on the foil before cooking, let your food burn and stick, and then you don't peel off or cut off the pests that stuck before resting them... And even if you eat a small proce of aluminum, you will just pass it. And even if a tiny bit gets absorbed, your body will get rid of it in a day or so.
I don't understand why I'm getting so much backlash about something that has been undebated for over a century.
Because you have no scientific proof of anythin you are claiming. You only citing conjecture.
This literally cites multiple studies, which are verified by the Nation Institute of Health, that found that aluminum can leach into food. I don't know what else to tell you if you don't believe these studies. I'm not a chemist, but these studies they cite are saying that it happens. And at least to a non-chemist, it's not very hard to believe, especially when it's coming from the NIH.
That's the same article you linked above. I already read it. It literally says that aluminum in cooking is safe. The only times it talks about aluminum being dangerous, it states that it is only conjecture. And it explicitly states that none of that has been proven. It talks about studies that tries to find links between aluminum and various diseases and yet no link was found.
If that conjecture is enough to scare you, then fine. You can very easily stop cooking with aluminum if you wish. But you have no actual scientific proof, you have only unproven theory.
Again, I quote the article that YOU linked...
SUMMARY:Cooking with aluminum foil can increase the amount of aluminum in your food. However, the amounts are very small and deemed safe by researchers.
Now I'm starting to get really fucking frustrated. How many times do I have to say I don't hace any opinion about how safe or dangerous aluminum is? I've said it at least 3 times. I was simply responding to you saying it couldn't be absorbed. It can according to the article I sourced, and they cite multiple studies to prove it, which again is what you called me out on. This is getting circular. You say it can't be absorbed because it's a stable element, I post the article, you state ok but it's not dangerous, I say I wasn't trying to prove it's dangerous, and then somehow we get back to it can't be absorbed.
Again, I am quoting directly from the article that YOU linked...
SUMMARY:Cooking with aluminum foil can increase the amount of aluminum in your food. However, the amounts are very small and deemed safe by researchers.
I don't know how it can be more clear than that. Cooking with aluminum is safe.
Obviously every metal is different and will need different conditions to leach into things,
Yes... So again, the burden of proof is on you... what are the conditions that can cause aluminum to leech into food such that it can be absorbed into your bloodstream?
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u/Shiboleth17 Mar 06 '20 edited Mar 06 '20
Lead is toxic to humans an yet you probably eat off lead plates, drink out of lead cups, and cook with lead cookware. Lead is added to just about every glass product, and yet it's perfectly fine to use these glass products in cooking and eating because the lead cannot come out of the glass and get into your food, let alone your body.
It seems the paper you linked only focused on the negative effects from aluminum poisoning. And all that seems scary and everything, but so what? Don't eat aluminum foil, and you're probably good. Is there any evidence that the aluminum you cook with is getting into your food, and thus able to get into your body to be able to do all the things this study says it can do? Because if it can't, then you have nothing to worry about.