Objective To integrate and improve the method for the determination of aluminum in food in order to provide data base for establishing a new National Food Safety Standard.To carry out an investigation on the aluminum content in flour products in Guangdong province to provide data base for evaluating human exposure to aluminum through diet and to standardize the use of aluminum-containing food additives.Methods Improved the digestion system and chromogenic system in the method of GB/T 5009.182—2003 and applied to detect the content of aluminum in wheaten food in which aluminum-containing food additives had been added as a leavening agent;and the background values of aluminum in food was detected by GB/T 23374—2009 and graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry.Results A total of 2 369 varied wheaten food samples were collected from supermarkets,grocery stores or kiosks located in different cities and villages in Guangdong province from 2006 to 2010.The results showed that the average contents of aluminum in deep-fried products like dough sticks and deep-fried cakes,steamed products like steamed stuffed bun and steamed bread,and bakery products like bakery bread were 321.0,201.0 and 26.2 mg/kg respectively,the eligibility for GB 2760—2011 in these three kinds of food listed above were 18.5%,31.6% and 95.2% respectively.Conclusion It is proposed to modify the GB/T 5009.182—2003 by adding graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry and integrating the GB/T 5009.182—2003 with GB/T 23374—2009 to establish a new National Food Safety Standard.The surveyed data continuously collected in the past 5 years indicated that aluminum-containing food additives had been widely used in deep-fried and steamed wheaten food and lead to a prevalence of exceeding the standard limit value of aluminum.FAO/WHO propounded in the year 2006 that the(provisional tolerable weekly intake) PTWI was 1 mg/kg BW.According to this guidance value,more attention should be paid to the problem of aluminum contamination through the ingestion of wheaten food,which might do harm to the health of residents in Guangdong province.