Aluminum Effects,

Cooking

Even if you avoid eating foods containing aluminum food additives, you could be adding aluminum to your food without even realizing it. Cookware manufacturers choose to use aluminum because it conducts heat effectively and uniformly, allowing foods to cook evenly. Cooking foods, especially acidic foods like fruits, tomatoes and wine, in pans made from aluminum can cause aluminum to leach into your food. To prevent this, manufacturers developed anodized aluminum, which retains the heat conductivity properties but creates a hard surface that does not react with food. To prevent scratches that can harm the surface and allow aluminum into your food, use only wood or plastic utensils when cooking food in these pans.

Pickles

Pickles may contain a significant level of aluminum. Some manufacturers add alum, an aluminum salt such as aluminum sulfate or potassium aluminum sulfate, during the pickling process to add firmness and crispness to the pickles. You can avoid ingesting aluminum by choosing pickles that do not contain alum. However, a variety of other products that you use daily, including deodorants and antacid medications, also contain aluminum salts, increasing your exposure.

Effects of Aluminum

The New York University Langone Medical Center reports that although small amounts of aluminum usually cause no harm, prolonged exposure or exposure to high levels can cause serious medical problems. Harmful exposure occurs over time, from eating foods that contain the food additive sodium aluminum phosphate or from living near aluminum mining. Short-term exposure, such as from breathing aluminum dust in the workplace, is also harmful. Aluminum toxicity affects the musculoskeletal system and brain, causing muscle weakness, bone pain, osteoporosis, delayed growth in children, altered mental abilities, dementia and seizures.

Read more: http://www.livestrong.com/article/540321-what-foods-contain-harmful-aluminum/#ixzz1rTeZRcEZ