White flour, sugar and salt do not have toxicity thresholds at the amounts in which they are normally consumed. EFSA, WHO and the main scientific institutions build their recommendations on Paracelsus’s principle: the dose makes the poison. Eleven meta-analyses cited in the source found no associations between refined-grain consumption and mortality. Sugar becomes a problem above 50 g a day in a 2,000-calorie diet. Salt above 5 g a day. The problem is not the ingredient itself: it is consuming around twice the recommended amount, often hidden in ultra-processed foods.

There is a story that has circulated for years, repeated in podcasts, Instagram stories and conversations around the table. The story says that three ingredients — white flour, sugar and salt — are poisons. That they slowly poison us. That our grandparents did not know it, but we do.

The problem is that the story is wrong.

Not partly wrong. Wrong in the way things are wrong when they begin with a true observation and draw a false conclusion from it. Like saying water is bad for you because drowning is possible.

The physician and alchemist Paracelsus wrote it in the sixteenth century, and the principle still holds: the dose makes the poison. It is not a clever line. It is a foundation of toxicology — the science of how substances interact with the human body. Every substance, even the most harmless one, becomes harmful at a sufficiently high dose. Every substance, even one people fear, can be harmless — or even necessary — at a sufficiently low dose. EFSA, WHO and the major international scientific institutions build their recommendations around exactly this principle.

Start with flour.

Refined soft-wheat flour — the white flour that ends up in pasta, bread and pizza — has no toxicity threshold established by any scientific institution. None. EFSA recommends that 45–60% of daily calories come from carbohydrates, and flour starch is one of the main ways the body obtains that fuel. Eleven meta-analyses — studies that pool and analyze data from dozens of previous studies — have looked for associations between refined-grain consumption and mortality, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer. The source says they did not find them. The real difference between white flour and whole-grain flour concerns fiber: whole-grain flour contains more of it, and fiber has documented benefits for the gut and heart. But saying “whole grain offers something extra” is different from saying “white flour is harmful.” They are different claims, and only the first is supported by the evidence presented here.

Now sugar.

Glucose — the simplest form in which sugar is used by the body — is described in the source as the brain’s obligatory fuel. When you eat something sweet and blood glucose rises, something pathological is not automatically happening: the body responds, manages the rise and returns toward balance. That is normal physiology, not an alarm in itself.

WHO sets free sugars — sugars added to foods plus sugars in fruit juices — at no more than 10% of daily energy. In an average 2,000-calorie diet, that corresponds to roughly 50 grams, a little under four tablespoons. The source states that below that threshold there is no evidence of toxicity, direct metabolic damage or oncological risk. EFSA has examined the issue and has stated that it cannot establish an absolute upper limit because evidence of harm at moderate intakes is not sufficient for such a threshold. The problem is not sugar as an isolated ingredient: it is an eating pattern built around sugary drinks, packaged snack cakes and ultra-processed products consumed every day in large amounts. A teaspoon in coffee is not the same thing — biologically or metabolically.

And then salt.

Sodium — the mineral that makes up salt together with chloride — is essential to life. It helps regulate the osmotic pressure of cells, allowing fluids to move in and out in balance. It transmits nerve impulses: without sodium, neurons do not communicate. It contributes to muscle contraction, including the heart. A sodium intake of zero is not compatible with survival; severe sodium deficiency is a serious medical condition.

WHO recommends staying below five grams of salt per day. The average Italian intake cited in the source is around ten. That is a real, documented problem, with concrete consequences for blood pressure and cardiovascular risk — particularly among people genetically predisposed to respond strongly to excess sodium. But the enemy is not salt itself: it is consuming around twice the recommended amount, much of it hidden in packaged bread, cured meats, aged cheeses and industrial sauces. The answer is not to demonize an ingredient. It is to understand where it is coming from.

The “white poisons” narrative works because it simplifies. It takes something complex — the relationship between dose, the overall dietary pattern and individual genetics — and reduces it to a list of enemies. It is easier to communicate, easier to follow and easier to sell. But that simplicity comes at a price: it makes you think the problem is on the spoon when it is actually in the plate as a whole.

And the plate is a longer, more nuanced story — less suited to a thirty-second reel.