Are ginkgo seeds safe to eat?
Fresh or improperly prepared ginkgo seeds are genuinely toxic; serious side effects, including seizures, have been documented even from traditionally roasted seeds.
The short answer
Ginkgo seed and ginkgo leaf are two genuinely different products with an important safety gap between them. Fresh seeds are toxic, and even traditionally roasted preparation has not reliably eliminated the risk in documented cases -- China's Pharmacopoeia caps daily seed consumption under 5-10g for this reason, and children are more commonly affected. The standardized leaf extract used in most modern evidence (like the EGb 761 formulation studied for antidepressant-related sexual dysfunction) has ginkgolic acid removed during processing, which is a separate, much safer product from the seed entirely.