"Poison Apples": Europe's Deadly MistakeHow wealthy diners were killed by their fancy tableware.

From the show

Historically Bad Advice

This story reveals how a simple misunderstanding created a centuries-long fear of a common food. For over 200 years, Europeans called tomatoes "poison apples," partly because they belonged to the toxic nightshade family. But the real danger was hiding in plain sight. When aristocrats ate the acidic fruit from their lead-based pewter plates, they were unknowingly poisoning themselves. The tomato was wrongly blamed for deaths caused by tableware, a mistake that shaped diets for generations.