Modern Utensils and Metal Leaching : Health Hazard

Marut

AncientScience, Toxins

Leaching
One of the silent feature of slow poisoning is that you really cannot blame the poison for your illness. You really cannot find the poison as root cause.
 
Indian Cooking is high temperature cooking. We believe in giving different संस्कार to our food before we eat it.
 
Metal leaching in food is obvious at high temperature [1] [2] [3]. Any metal in excess in digestible form or in non-digestible form is toxic for body.The increase in cooking temperature causes more leaching. The leaching is also highly dependent on the pH value of the food solution, salt, and spices added to the food solutions.
 
Research for metal-toxicity. For example, aluminium leaching from foil and utensils cause:
 
• Diminished kidney function
• Lung problems
• Nervous system problems causing difficulty with voluntary and involuntary actions
• Bone diseases
• Brain diseases and disorders
• Anemia
• Impaired iron absorption
• Confusion
• Muscle weakness
• Bone pain, deformities, and fractures
• Seizures
• Speech problems
• Slow growth—in children
 
On the other hand, when we cook on clay utensils, as our forefathers are used to do, minerals are leached from soil. They not only protect the structure of the food nutrients but also add superb taste!
 
Are we bold enough to accept ancient knowledge and alter lifestyle?
 
Are we bold enough to respect potters as Soil-scientists?
 
Or, like yet another slave nation, we will embrace alien practices as modernity ?
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Research
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[1] http://www.electrochemsci.org/papers/vol7/7054498.pdf

Risk Assessment of Using Aluminum Foil in Food Preparation

The contamination of food is a major concern not only for developing countries but also for the entire world. In the present work, leaching of aluminum from aluminum foil in different food solutions was studied. Minced meat was used to prepare six different food solutions using tomato juice, citric acid, apple vinegar, salt, and spices. Three techniques for analysis were used, weight loss (WL) measurements, Environmental Scanning Electron Microscopy (ESEM), and Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS). The results clearly indicate that the use of aluminum foil for cooking contributes significantly to the daily intake of aluminum through the cooked foods. The amount of leaching was found to be high in acidic solutions, and even higher with the addition of spices. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the obtained values considered to be unacceptable. Finally, excessive consumption of aluminum from leaching aluminum foil has an extreme health risk effects. Aluminum foil may be used for packing but not for cooking.

[2] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23984718

Stainless steel leaches nickel and chromium into foods during cooking.

Toxicological studies show that oral doses of nickel and chromium can cause cutaneous adverse reactions such as dermatitis. Additional dietary sources, such as leaching from stainless steel cookware during food preparation, are not well characterized. This study examined stainless steel grades, cooking time, repetitive cooking cycles, and multiple types of tomato sauces for their effects on nickel and chromium leaching. Trials included three types of stainless steels and a stainless steel saucepan, cooking times of 2-20 h, 10 consecutive cooking cycles, and four commercial tomato sauces. After a simulated cooking process, samples were analyzed by ICP-MS for Ni and Cr. After 6 h of cooking, Ni and Cr concentrations in tomato sauce increased up to 26- and 7-fold, respectively, depending on the grade of stainless steel. Longer cooking durations resulted in additional increases in metal leaching, where Ni concentrations increased 34-fold and Cr increased approximately 35-fold from sauces cooked without stainless steel. Cooking with new stainless steel resulted in the largest increases. Metal leaching decreases with sequential cooking cycles and stabilized after the sixth cooking cycle, although significant metal contributions to foods were still observed. The tenth cooking cycle resulted in an average of 88 μg of Ni and 86 μg of Cr leached per 126 g serving of tomato sauce. Stainless steel cookware can be an overlooked source of nickel and chromium, where the contribution is dependent on stainless steel grade, cooking time, and cookware usage.

[3] http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF00192042?LI=true

Leaching of heavy metals (Cr, Fe, and Ni) from stainless steel utensils in food simulants and food materials

 

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