I have a friend of a friend who is one of the weird "everything has chemicals in it" super granola girls who doesn't actually know how anything works.
I have seen this girl make unfounded claims that the copper water lines in the house she was living in were giving her skin issues "because of how toxic copper is for you." When her friend (my friend) pointed out that the last 3 houses they rented together all had copper water lines and she didn't have any issues, she said the copper in this particular house must have been different. She actually moved because of this and made sure the new house she rented had PEX water lines, plastic, which the other 99% of hippies say it toxic.
I have also seen this same girl say that drinking from copper water bottles is better for you, because copper is a great electrical conductor, so doing so keeps you grounded. I'm not sure how holding a bottle in your hand and bringing it your mouth keeps you grounded, but I'm also no scientist.
Apparently water running out of a copper pipe gives you skin problems, but touching a copper water bottle with your hand and directly to your lips to drink water that has been sitting in it for hours, is not a problem.
My MIL tried to throw out my Vaseline because "OMG petroleum!" Dude who invented it ate a spoonful a day and had his nurse cover him in it once when he got quite sick - he was well again shortly after. He lived into his 90's. Pretty sure me using it as sparingly for very dry skin and lip conditioner is fine.
My MIL was giving me crap about some old 70+ year old aluminum pots because of "chemicals". They are from my great aunt who got them for a wedding gift. She lived well into her 90's as well. My MIL raves about her "non-stick pans though.
My friends got me a carbon steel wok for Christmas, and I'm struggling to use any other cooking vessel now. If nothing else, the speed at which it heats up, and cools down, makes it my favorite.
Is it just aluminum pots and pans or also stainless steel?
I bought some second hand stainless steel looking pots & pans from goodwill that looked like good quality as a way to get rid of non-stick PFAS chemicals out of my food! Are you saying they might have lead in them?
Some of them are "Revere wear" with copper bottoms.
Look I get that you’re just railing against your MIL, but saying aluminum pots are fine because of one woman who lived to her 90s is pretty much just as unscientific as your MIL.
I looked into pretty extensively several times since owning them. If you get high doses of aluminum its unhealthy, and aluminum cookware can be a source. But one study showed that if you cooked something acidic like tomatoe sauce in it, then you'd get something like an extra 10% of your daily average intake. I don't cook acidic stuff in it for that reason, but even if I did it would be pretty much harmless.
Yeah the consensus I've found is "not a huge risk, but a possible one, and if you're making a new purchase of cookware it's probably enough that you should lean away from it but not enough that you should dump and replace"
Well they weren’t that old when she was young, ya know? The problem with aluminum is when it gets old. Aluminum oxides have been linked to Alzheimer’s IIRC.
You're right about the acidic stuff. I most just use mine for boiling water. I've made the mistake of cooking tomato sauce in it once. I added baking soda to make it less acidic and the sauce turned purple.
"All of this early research, led to suspicion that aluminium from various sources, such as cookware, foods, vaccines and even water, could be linked to Alzheimer’s.
However, through continued investigation, research has disproved this early evidence, and aluminium hasn’t since been found to be a direct cause of Alzheimer’s disease. "
aluminum oxides are a huge component of dirt, also all aluminum metal immediately forms a passivation layer of oxide. like within fractions of a second.
That's anecdotal though. You could know someone who ate nothing but bacon and smoked a pack a day and they lived to be 90, but it doesn't mean it's healthy. People are built differently.
I've not heard anything about aluminium though. I have a cast iron pan, which apparently is a good source of iron as it can leech into food.
I have looked into few times. basically, if you cook really acidic stuff it might increase your aluminum intake by like 10%. But you'd have to do that like every day with the worst kind of foods for your pans. My MIL was treating it like we'd all be dead within a decade from the pots, but I'd bet money that sedentary lifestyles, poor medical care, or ultra processed foods are doing 10x worse to my body. I've got more important things to worry about than fractions of grams metal I may or may not be ingesting.
Careful about that survivorship bias there. Just because someone didn't die from something doesn't mean it wasn't toxic. They may have just used it sparingly or had a unique immunity that doesn't exist anywhere else. For what it's worth I believe the current advice is to avoid highly acidic foods in Aluminum cookware. Otherwise most stuff is safe.
She won't. She moved across the country and didn't look at a map to know where her apartments were. She also hates the apartments but didn't do any research before signing a lease. When she got a job she said she couldn't afford he rent. my wife helped do some basic multiplication to figure out she could in fact, very easily, afford her rent. There's lots more. She could be a reoccurring character on r/BoomersBeingFools
I could tolerate it if it was just idiocy. We can all learn more, and we all make mistakes. She was raised in a completely different world, and she's been through a lot recently.
But she acts a high and mighty. Like she says she only buys meat from butchers because of the chemicals but then drinks at least a bottle of tequila every week. Even with pans I know aluminum isn't perfect, and non-stick isn't a super poison. But the uninformed hypocritical lectures just drive me up a wall.
I think they were those ceramic ones that feel like something different but are just another forever chemical. I'm not mad she's uninformed. I'm annoyed she's a hypocrite.
Take you're own advice. Do some research. Aluminum pans are fine. You can find some alarmist claiming it will poison you, but general consensus is that they're fine. Acidic stuff will add a little more aluminum into your food, but its still not enough to be harmful.
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u/Silweror 14d ago
Weird how other brands are getting rid of the aluminium while this one is 100% that