Many Brands Of Chocolate Measured To Have High Levels Of Lead And Cadmium

ChocolateHeavyMetals As You Sow, an organization that describes itself as “promoting environmental and social corporate responsibility” commissioned a lab to test levels of lead and cadmium in 42 chocolate products. They found a lot of lead and cadmium:

26 of the chocolate products (~62%) contain lead and/or cadmium at levels in which one serving exceeds the California safe harbor level for reproductive harm.

Lead is associated with neurological impairment, such as learning disabilities and lower IQ, even at low levels.

Cadmium has been linked to kidney, liver, and bone damage in humans.

From Food Safety News:

Some of the chocolate tested contained lead at levels up to 5.9 times California’s “safe harbor” level — or the maximum allowable daily limit — for reproductive harm, and found cadmium at levels up to 8.2 times the limit.

Polluted soil and air contaminates the cacao beans as they grow, are air dried, and processed. Pesticides, fertilizers, and leaded gasoline contaminate soil. The burning of fossil fuels and municipal waste pollute the air. Organic chocolate was found to have the same high levels of these heavy metals as nonorganic.

Eleanne van Vliet, As You Sow’s director of toxic chemicals research:

There also appears to be no clear pattern of brands affected as they span the range of chocolate on the market.

1 thought on “Many Brands Of Chocolate Measured To Have High Levels Of Lead And Cadmium”

Bix Post authorFebruary 14, 2015 at 3:12 pm

I never heard of “As You Sow.” I never heard of “social corporate responsibility” either. I had to look it up.

Wikipedia has an entry for something with the same words in a different order, Corporate Social Responsibility.

This doesn’t sound very good:

Critics questioned the “lofty” and sometimes “unrealistic expectations” in CSR, or that CSR is merely window-dressing, or an attempt to pre-empt the role of governments as a watchdog over powerful multinational corporations.

Some sociologists viewed CSR as a form of capitalist legitimacy and in particular point out that what began as a social movement against uninhibited corporate power was transformed by corporations into a ‘business model’ and a ‘risk management’ device, often with questionable results.

So, if corporations make it appear that they are policing themselves, it will get government off their backs? And they build this into their business model? My god. This is some of the slimiest stuff I’ve heard in a while.

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