Is it okay to eat silver One of my friends recently went to India and brought back some sweets today. These sweets have a silver layer on top. Therefore, I'm quite curious as to whether or not it is safe to eat silver. 

As far as I know, there is no processing mechanism for heavy metal in the human body. I think that these sweets probably do not contain real silver metal, otherwise they could be really expensive... I guess it could be aluminium or some other less expensive metal.

Anyone have any idea?
This is a reasonably common practice in South Asian cuisine. Some reasonably credibly information can be found in the Wikipedia article on vark. Quoting from the section on safety:


  Gold and silver are approved food foils in the European Union, as E175 and E174 additives respectively. The independent European food-safety certification agency, TÜV Rheinland, has deemed gold leaf safe for consumption. Gold and silver leaf are also certified as kosher. These inert precious metal foils are neither considered as toxic to human beings nor to broader ecosystems


and


  The total silver metal intake per kilogram of sweets eaten, from vark, is less than one milligram.