Guide
Reducing food waste: give your food a second chance
by Raphael Knecht
Aluminium in food: how to reduce your everyday exposure to toxins
14.6.2023
Translation: machine translated
Food, drinking water, air, cosmetics: aluminium is a frequent (uninvited) guest. And it's also toxic. You can find out how to avoid excessive intake of the metal through your food here.
"Aluminium is all around me ... It's written on the wind, it's everywhere I go": not a global hit, but the truth. The toxin is an integral part of our environment. And can harm you if your exposure is too high. I've already told you that the light metal can accumulate in your body and why you're better off using roll-on deodorants instead of spray deodorants:
Apart from its high natural occurrence, global demand for aluminium is also at a record level. This was recently announced by the International Aluminium Institute in London.
Most of this aluminium is used for food packaging. Paradoxical, isn't it? After all, aluminium is a neurotoxin. And yet it wraps your food. For example, when you buy frozen food or ready meals in standard aluminium trays.
After all, aluminium is involved here?
You probably don't even know about many aluminium traps in the kitchen. Food from aluminium trays, for example. No toxins should actually be released from the packaging. But in combination with certain ingredients, it can still happen. The possible consequence: you ingest too much aluminium and exceed the amount that is not yet harmful to your health.
1. bring variety to your diet
Eat a balanced and varied diet - this includes changing products from time to time. If you always reach for the same thing, you run the risk of being permanently exposed to high levels of stress
2. pay attention to how food is packaged
. After all, they are in direct contact with your food. A healthy person is able to remove most of the aluminium absorbed through drinking water and food via the kidneys. However, what remains can accumulate in the body, especially in the skeletal system. Once stored, it is very difficult to get rid of.
3. use the right cookware
. This is because heating can transfer the toxin into the food. As the light metal conducts heat well, it is often found in cookware. According to the BfR, there is no precise limit value for the release of aluminium from ceramic objects - only the general guideline "that food contact materials must not release substances into food in quantities that could be harmful to human health". Therefore:
- If possible, use pots and pans without aluminium. Cookware made of aluminium usually has a coating to protect your food from leaching toxins. However, if it is not coated at all, the quality of the coating is poor or it deteriorates after years - when scratches and dents appear - this protection is not (or no longer) provided. Much better: the combination of cast iron and enamel, as used by Le Creuset, for example.
- Do not prepare sour and salty foods in aluminium cookware. As with aluminium foil, this also applies to cookware.
- Cover aluminium baking trays with baking paper before use.
- Do not grill on aluminium trays. So it is better to use ceramic or stainless steel containers.
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