Fluoride is in the salt. In the toothpaste. In the tea. In the mineral water.
Every source on its own: permitted, tested, harmless.
And adding them up? Nobody does. Nobody’s even responsible for it.
So let’s do it now.
Count along
In the salt
Fluoridated table salt may contain up to 310 milligrams of fluoride per kilo, usually it’s 250. It’s in almost every supermarket, often paired up with iodine, and it’s sold to you as prevention. Here something really is being added.
In the toothpaste
1000 to 1500 ppm in every normal tube. Adults spit it out. Small children don’t. The German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) says so itself: a child takes in roughly as much fluoride from swallowed toothpaste as from a tablet.
In black tea
Naturally. No accusation, no intent. Just one more line in a sum nobody does.
In mineral water
I have to set something straight here that’s going round online the wrong way: fluoride is not added to mineral water. It’s in there naturally, and nobody’s allowed to add it either. The sentence that really hurts is a different one: up to 1.5 milligrams per litre, the content doesn’t have to go on the label at all. If it’s on a bottle, they put it there voluntarily. With all the others, you simply don’t know.
Not secretly mixed in. Just legally kept quiet.
What the authorities say themselves
- There is an upper limit. The European authority sets it at 1.5 milligrams a day for children aged one to three. For four- to eight-year-olds, at 2.5.
- There is damage. In Germany, 10 to 22 per cent of schoolchildren show mild dental fluorosis, white spots that appear when too much fluoride arrives while the teeth are forming. Not a forecast. A survey.
- And there is a warning. The BfR explicitly recommends choosing just one single form of fluoride for babies and toddlers. If they brush with fluoride toothpaste, the tablets should go.
Read that again.
The authority knows the sources add up. It even says so. And then the same family goes shopping: fluoridated salt, because it sounds healthy. Water that doesn’t have to state its content. Toothpaste the child half swallows.
And nobody has done anything wrong.
Every part is tested. Nobody tests the sum.
And the tap water?
Now I have to pull the rug out from under a story that’s going round online. Even though it would go my way.
In Germany, drinking water is not fluoridated.
Over 90 per cent of German tap waters are below 0.3 milligrams per litre. The big water story is American. Anyone telling it here translated it, not checked it.
What really happened in 2024: after reviewing the studies, the US National Toxicology Program concluded with moderate confidence that exposures above 1.5 milligrams per litre are associated with lower IQ in children. For low levels, the data were explicitly not enough. German tap water is far below that.
And that’s exactly why I’m telling you: if I contradict you here, even though it would back up my argument, then you know what the rest of this page is worth.
The problem isn’t the tap. The problem is the adding up.
Check it yourself
- Salt: Does it say “with fluoride” on the pack? Then you know one more source is being added.
- Mineral water: If no fluoride content is given, that doesn’t mean zero. It only means: below 1.5 milligrams per litre, and nobody knows exactly.
- Tap water: Your water supplier or the local health office (Gesundheitsamt) will give you the figure for where you live. One email is enough.
- Children: Add up all the sources before another one gets added. Even the authority advises you to.
Don’t believe me. Look it up.
NTP monograph 2024 on fluoride and neurodevelopment · BfR, “Fluorid – ein wichtiger Baustoff für die Zähne” (“Fluoride – an important building material for teeth”) and “Für gesunde Zähne” (“For healthy teeth”) · EFSA, tolerable upper intake levels for fluoride · German Nutrition Society (DGE) reference values for fluoride · Bavarian Health and Food Safety Authority (LGL) on labelling requirements for mineral water