It's non-toxic and food safe, and yet a significant number of people on the internet still act like it's poison that will give you Alzheimer's. I wonder how many of those people touch their lips to the lid of an aluminum beverage can. Or how they might bake a lasagna at home.
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.
Aluminum foil (2021)
71–80 of 148 posts
Re: Aluminum foil (2021)
#72I wasn't expecting to see Dernocua at the top of HN today with 53 comments. You can download Dernocua as a whole from http://canonical.org/~kragen/dernocua/ if you're interested. I'm happy to answer any questions. (Well, almost any.)
Re: Aluminum foil (2021)
#73That isn't true for either thermal or electrical conductivity. So I don't know what is meant here.
Re: Aluminum foil (2021)
#74This made me wonder about a 3D printer alternative that builds things by folding a thin sheet of metal into arbitrary shapes instead of extruding filament.
Re: Aluminum foil (2021)
#75It's non-toxic and food safe, and yet a significant number of people on the internet still act like it's poison that will give you Alzheimer's. I wonder how many of those people touch their lips to the lid of an aluminum beverage can. Or how they might bake a lasagna at home.
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.
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.
Re: Aluminum foil (2021)
#76>...and conductive, rivaling copper. That isn't true for either thermal or electrical conductivity. So I don't know what is meant here.
Re: Aluminum foil (2021)
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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?
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.
Re: Aluminum foil (2021)
#78Re: Aluminum foil (2021)
#79I wasn't expecting to see Dernocua at the top of HN today with 53 comments. You can download Dernocua as a whole from http://canonical.org/~kragen/dernocua/ if you're interested. I'm happy to answer any questions. (Well, almost any.)
Re: Aluminum foil (2021)
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
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.