aluminum cooking pots

Absolute nonsense. Read the article you cited: it's talking about the *crust*, not the planet as a whole -- which has an iron core. (Remember 7th grade science class?)

Right - it's only the crust. I read too quickly.

But all life on the planet is in the crust, not the core, and the aluminum part of the crust still outweighs all life. Being only in the crust actually strengthens the argument, as it raises the Al concentration that life must have dealt with for aeons, from before multicellular life evolved, billions of years ago. Hominids are only a few million years old. I'll keep my aluminum pots and pans.

Joe Gwinn

Note that I'm not the one who raised questions of possible toxicity; I only pointed out the gustatory unsuitability of aluminum cooking vessels for acidic foods.

Yep. I prefer stainless-steel lined copper pans. Stainless lined aluminum also works, but not as well as copper.

Copper does taste bad as well. Except for Meringue and a few other things .

McGee is very interesting: "On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen (Hardcover) by Harold McGee, Scribner 2004, 896 pages.

For high heat, it's hard to beat cast iron pans. It's also hard to hurt them. I've destroyed aluminum pans this way. Been too chicken to push copper that far.

Joe Gwinn