Adding vinegar into an aluminum pan turned the sauce green. What happened? Is the sauce "poisoned"?!


Question: Adding vinegar into an aluminum pan turned the sauce green. What happened? Is the sauce "poisoned"?
An herbal medicine recipe cooks garlic, ginger, vinegar, and honey together. While using an aluminum rice cooking pot, the vinegar turned the ginger/garlic sauce greenish color; the longer it simmered, the darker the green color became. I believed that a chemical reaction was happening, but didn't know whether that was poisonous or not, so we started the cooking all over using a stainless steel pot instead.

Answers:

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Not toxic to the best of my knowledge. Acidic foods that also contain salt will corrode aluminum cookware (most foods contains at least SOME salt) The net result is aluminum hydroxide which has a bitter, metallic taste. Aluminum hydroxide is used in some antacids. Even thought it's not dangerous the sauce wouldn't have tasted very good at that point.

The green color is caused by corrosion of the aluminum, and also I believe by color changes in the pigments in the ginger which result from changes in acidity. The aluminum hydroxide is a base and tends to neutralize acids. A fair number of plant pigments are sensitive to changes in pH and may change colors if acids or bases are added. For example, juice from boiled red cabbage turns blue, then greenish if baking soda is added.

There's been some controversy recently that aluminum compounds //might// cause long-term brain damage. I consider these concerns to be sketchy at best. In cities and towns that have 'hard" water, the water will contain small amounts of aluminum compounds as part of the normal mineral content of the water, which makes it "hard." I'm not aware that there have been any reports of mass poisonings from hard water.



sorry, i really don't know. but it's probably a chemical reaction because vinegar is acid. :))



Acid and aluminum chemically reacts and is toxic.




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