Aluminum contamination of food during culinary preparation: Case study with aluminum foil and consumers’ preferences

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2025-01-13 01:30:02

Correspondence, Dani Dordevic, Department of Plant Origin Foodstuffs Hygiene and Technology, Faculty of Veterinary Hygiene and Ecology University of Veterinary and Pharmaceutical Sciences Brno, University of Veterinary and Pharmaceutical Sciences Brno, Palackého tř. 1, 612 42 Brno, Czech Republic. Email: dani_dordevic@yahoo.com

This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

The aim of the work was to estimate the degree of aluminum leakage from aluminum foil during baking process of selected food/meals. The experiment included 11 different types of food (Atlantic salmon Salmo salar, mackerel Scomber scombrus, duck breasts, cheese Hermelín, tomato, paprika, Carlsbad dumplings, pork roast, pork neck, chicken breasts, and chicken thighs) baked both marinated and not marinated. The aluminum content was measured by AAS and ICP/MS methods. The highest aluminum increase was observed in the samples of marinated Salmo salar (41.86 ± 0.56 mg/kg), Scomber scombrus (49.34 ± 0.44 mg/kg), and duck breast (117.26 ± 1.37 g/kg). The research was also supported by the survey that consisted of 784 respondents with different sociodemographic characteristics. The study clearly showed the occurrence of aluminum contamination of food when it is prepared by baking in aluminum foil. It cannot be concluded that aluminum leakage will occur with each type of food. The aluminum contents found among investigated samples are not alarming, though the increase was measured up to 40 times. On the other hand, revealed aluminum contents can represent a risk for younger/smaller children and for individuals with diagnosed certain ailments.

Aluminum is one of the most abundant elements in earth crust's mass (8% of the earth crust's mass); due to this fact, it can be explained the prevalence of aluminum content in food, though with concentrations below 5 mg/kg (EFSA, 2008; Ertl & Goessler, 2018). Daily aluminum intake depends on food types, and according to studies, following food types contribute the most to aluminum daily intake: cereals, vegetables, fruits, tea, coffee, wheat, and wheat‐based products (Bratakos, Lazou, Bratakos, & Lazos, 2012; Fekete, Vandevijvere, Bolle, & Loco, 2013; González‐Weller, Gutiérrez, Rubio, Revert, & Hardisson, 2010; Ma et al., 2016). The problem of aluminum intake can be emphasized with the fact that only small amounts of aluminum can be efficiently excreted by human bodies. Meaning that wider population can be exposed to aluminum amounts that cannot be handled by human body (Bassioni, Mohammed, Al Zubaidy, & Kobrsi, 2012).