Aluminum in Baking Powder and Other Foods

Two of my coworkers challenged me to a bake-off with my vegan cookies against regular cookies and rice flour cookies.  Hope people like my cookies in comparison.  So I was making a batch of my vegan cookies for the bake-off and I just so happened to read the ingredients label on my baking powder.  It had listed Baking Soda, Cornstarch, Sodium Aluminum Sulfate, Calcium Sulfate, Monocalcium Phosphate.  Since I know that Sulfates aren't great in hair products I looked up to see what Sodium Aluminum Sulafate is.

Aluminum has been found to adversely affect the reproductive and nervous systems in animal studies. Some human studies have also suggested a potential association between aluminum and Alzheimer's Disease.  The studies are inconclusive, but why take a chance?  I'd rather skip on the Sodium Aluminum Sulfate.  Here's a website that lists the usual products and food that would contain Aluminum ...... http://home.earthlink.net/~joannefstruve/_wsn/page2.html .  I didn't realize that the salt used at McDonald's had aluminum too.  Yikes! 

Here's how to make your own Baking Powder:
 1/4 cup baking soda
1/2 cup cream of tartar
1/4 cup corn starch
Mix all ingredients together until well combined. Store in an airtight container. When using this product, bake immediately after mixing up the recipe batter. Yield: One cup of baking powder.

It's interesting when becoming more aware of ingredients in products.  I hope everyone starts to read not just the nutrition label, but also the ingredients labels of the food they buy. 

Here's more information:
http://www.healthcastle.com/aluminum.shtml
http://ezinearticles.com/?Hidden-Aluminum-in-Your-Diet---Baking-Powder&id=1732092
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baking_powder