I think you're right, people in third world countries use lots of aluminum in their cookware (Thailand, while not being third world) is a good example of a place which uses it a lot in cookery.
Just don't use aluminum citrus squeezers or cook your tomato sauce in aluminum pots (as their useful lifetimes will suffer, and the food might take on a weird taste.)
It would also seem that most of the danger from aluminum cookery, where there is such, comes from impurities in the recycled aluminum (lead, and other hazardous metals).