Is edible gold foil safe?

Many people are familiar with gold foil, which is a relatively thin product made of gold. In recent years, the trend of eating gold has become popular again, especially in Japan and Southeast Asia. There are some habits of eating gold foil, such as gold foil wine, gold foil candy, gold foil water, etc. It is relatively safe to use gold foil, and it is said that it also has a certain effect on regulating the body. There are some records of eating gold foil in ancient China.

Almost everyone knows about gold jewelry , but have you heard of gold food? As early as the Tang Dynasty, some people believed that gold had health and medical benefits. Li Shizhen of the Ming Dynasty recorded in "Compendium of Materia Medica": "Eating gold can calm the spirit, strengthen the bone marrow, and clear the evil spirits of the five internal organs. It is effective as a god. Especially when gold foil is made into pills or powders and taken, it can break cold air and eliminate wind."

Is it safe? Cooked gold is safe, while raw gold is poisonous. As for safety, will it cause heavy metal poisoning? Traditional Chinese medicine divides gold into "raw gold" and "cooked gold". Gold that has not been smelted and forged many times is called raw gold. It is "toxic and can kill people, so it should never be used as medicine" because the impurities in raw gold have not been removed. This is correct from a scientific point of view. Gold foil with a purity of more than 90% is safe for consumption.

Conversely, the lower the purity of gold foil, the more heavy metal components such as lead, copper, etc. are mixed in it, making it unsuitable for consumption and causing heavy metal poisoning. The World Health Organization classified gold as a food additive in 1983. Because gold foil is light in weight, less than 2 grams of gold is used in a gold banquet. Therefore, the amount of gold foil consumed in foods such as gold foil meat buns, gold foil coffee, and gold foil cakes is extremely small. Gold foil with high purity (more than 90%) will be excreted from the body approximately 24 hours after consumption and will not accumulate in the body, so it is safe to consume.

Ancient China related

Traditional Chinese medicine has a long history of using gold foil. In the eyes of traditional Chinese medicine practitioners, eating gold is not surprising, because ancient Chinese medicine has regarded gold foil as a medicinal ingredient. Can gold foil be eaten? How to eat it? In ancient times, eating gold foil required a lot of effort. First, a small piece of pure gold had to be sandwiched between two thick pieces of straw paper. Then, using the ductility of the pure gold, it was beaten hard until it became a thin piece of gold foil, which could then be eaten.

Nowadays, one gram of pure gold can be made into gold foil of 5,500 square centimeters in size with a thickness of only 0.0001 mm using machines. Recently, gold has been crushed into extremely fine gold powder by nano-processing. In addition to gold foil, there is also liquid gold foil. Spraying a little liquid gold foil in a cup of fragrant coffee will make the coffee more dazzling, and it is also said to have health and beauty effects.