Starting to give some thought to New Years and health and have been thinking about aluminum foil.

Turns out it came into use at the turn of the 19th century. It replaced copper because it was cheaper.

Ah cheaper. Anytime I hear that I know there’s a trade off somewhere.

Now it turns out it’s safe to use, just not with high temperatures. Leeching happens when baking and grilling with aluminum foil. Over time the buildup can pose health problems. “According to the World Health Organization, human bodies are capable of properly releasing small amounts of aluminum efficiently, so it’s considered safe to ingest 40mg per kilogram of body weight of aluminum per day. Unfortunately, most people are ingesting far more than this.”

If the buildup in the body is greater than the amount that can be excreted, aluminum is deposited in the liver, bone, brain, heart, spleen and muscles. This leads to toxic overload.

With doing a days worth of baking and using parchment paper I then proceeded to baking chicken, while pondering this information and “theres got to be a better way” – thought “why not”. And, it worked! Wonderfully.

Of course, rather than give up on classic baked potatoes I am going to try baking a potato in the same way. Or, apparently you can wrap them in banana leaves. Now where am I going to find them???

It’s the little things………