For the purposes of human consumption, metallic gold is inert. I've probably eaten on the order of a gram in the last decade. It ends up in the toilet.
Gold has a far lower ionization energy than you are giving it credit for, which means it is capable of becoming toxic with relatively minor interactions. The safe for consumption statement implies interactions natural to human physiology are not likely to make gold toxic, but that doesn't account for other things humans consume that do trigger reactions not normal to human physiology.
Like gold we generally believe fruit juice is safe for consumption. Fruit juice is even classified as safe for consumption, like gold, by the FDA. This was proven to be not completely true when the price of grapefruit production fell in the 1980s. Certain chemical interactions with fruit juice will make you sick and in extreme cases will kill you. This phenomenon was only discovered because of numerous associated deaths.
