Almost every third home in India uses aluminium foil to wrap food and many use it for cooking too, especially during baking and roasting. But if Ghada Bassioni from Ain Shams University Cairo is to be believed, the pleasure of enjoying aluminium wrapped food may just be doing more harm than you know. According to her, “The migration of aluminium into food during the cooking process is above the permissible limit set by World Health Organisation.”
There is no rocket science in the fact that solids, liquids and gases absorb more of the environment around them when they are hot but what Bassioni has said may actually hold more value than a mere research paper.
It is interesting to note here that tin foil was used to wrap foods before aluminium foil was introduced in the market. Many people around the world had complained of food tasting or smelling like tin and hence aluminium and other forms of food wrappings were developed and introduced in the world.
Millions of households may have to switch back to tin foils or other forms of wrapping food if further research proves the point Bassioni is trying to make. There are many other cookware utensils with aluminium in them, but as per Bassioni, layers of other metals in cooking utensils prevent aluminium from being absorbed by the food. She has further explained that aluminium present in cooking utensils during the cooking process gets oxidised.
