This thin silver metal sheet is all you need in your kitchen to pave your way towards healthy eating. Many times you may not realise how you are storing your food or pay attention to some mundane cooking practices. Understanding the benefits of using this foil in your kitchen every day will surely bring a positive change to your kitchen.
Aluminium foil is one of the most essential elements in our kitchen and has almost become indispensable. This is mainly because it is so versatile in its uses. You can use it for food storage, to cover baking surfaces, to wrap foods, and to prevent foods from losing moisture while cooking. It can be used to line grill trays, to keep things tidy and in order, and for scrubbing pans to remove stubborn stains and residue!
Benefits of using Aluminium Foil
Even though it may be easy to just take some regular paper to wrap up and store your food, it can be quite inconvenient to see the results. Paper is not waterproof or oil-resistant, and you will find that the water will end up tearing the paper, or the oil has soaked into the paper. Additionally, leaving food in paper or tissue can often leave a bad smell, and you definitely do not want that odour around your house when guests walk in! Aluminium foil seems to solve all the problems that regular paper poses.
Seals the Odour
Aluminium foil has a barrier function that acts against the migration of moisture, oxygen and other aromas. This helps you to package your food and seal in the odour. Make sure to tightly pinch the edges and the sides while wrapping so that no air can go or come out.
Retains Heat
Aluminium has many beneficial properties because of its ability to retain and distribute heat. This is why it is used to cover many foods while baking or cooking. Its thermal processing ensures rapid heating and minimum heat damage during cooking. When cooking in an oven, the major source of cooking is convection. Hence, it is ideal to use aluminium foil for cooking in the oven to avoid the sides of your pie getting burnt, or to bake some potatoes and save yourself from adding that extra bit of oil to your food.
Helps Store Food
Since aluminium can withstand high temperatures, it makes it the perfect material for packing food. This is why we always see those stacks of biryani in aluminium foil packaging. It helps keep the heat inside and makes it easy to reheat in the future. The foil reflects thermal energy into the food maintaining the aroma, moisture and flavour of the food.
Prevents Germs and Bacteria
Using aluminium foil for storage will also help prevent the food from coming in contact with germs as it is highly resistant to all bacteria. You can also add an extra layer to your packaging to prevent it from being torn.
Easy Packaging
Aluminium foil easily forms around any shape with minimal effort. This is why it is the most ideal household and food industry item.
Sustainable
Aluminium can be used multiple times. It is easy to clean and can be used to store foods one after the other.
Healthier and Easier Cooking
Using aluminium foil for cooking can avoid the use of too much oil in your food. It can also save you the trouble of scrubbing and cleaning pans every night. Foil can be used as a conductor at the base of the pan and can prevent stickiness instead of oil. In this way, you minimise the use of oil, without having your pan dirty during the process.
Aluminium foil does have many other unusual benefits. For instance, when your brown sugar is hard as a rock because you haven’t used it in a while, you can wrap it tightly in aluminium foil and pop it in the oven to have soft sugar again. You can also scrunch the foil up into a ball and use it to scrub your pan or grill to make it squeaky clean. Placing aluminium foil near your plants can also help to keep pests away.
So it’s time to limit the uses of your regular paper to taking notes and making paper paper-boats, and start using aluminium foil to store your food in a safe and healthy manner!