- Consumer Reports tested 48 popular chocolate products for heavy metals.
- A third of products, mostly dark chocolate, contained concerning levels of lead and cadmium.
- You can reduce heavy metal consumption by choosing specific products or switching to milk chocolate.
If you eat a lot of dark chocolate, you may want to reconsider which brands you buy, experts say, after a new report found potentially harmful levels of heavy metals in some popular products.
Consumer Reports, a nonprofit consumer organization, tested 48 chocolate products for heavy metals from seven different categories: cocoa powder, chocolate chips, milk chocolate bars, brownie mixes, chocolate cake mixes, and hot chocolate powder. This comes after they found heavy metals in 23 out of 28 bars of dark chocolate bars in a report released last year, and they added a few more dark chocolate bars to their latest test.
In the report released on October 25, Consumer Reports found that all 48 products that they tested contained detectable amounts of lead and cadmium, heavy metals linked to an increased risk of conditions such as cancer and developmental issues in children.
And 16 of those 48 products, from brands such as Hershey's, Hu, Perugina, Walmart, and Nestlé, were found to contain at least one heavy metal at higher levels than Consumer Reports considers safe.
A third of the chocolate products tested contained concerning levels of heavy metals
As there are no federal limits for the amount of lead and cadmium that most food can safely contain, Consumer Reports used California's maximum allowable dose levels for these substances, which it considers to be "the most protective available," at 0.5 micrograms of lead and 4.1 micrograms of cadmium per day.
A third of the products tested contained more cadmium and lead than Consumer Reports' levels of concern, including: Perugina's 85% Premium Dark Chocolate, which contained 539% of the level of concern for lead, and Evolved's Signature Dark 72% Cacao Chocolate Bar, which contained 149% of the level of concern for cadmium.
Most of the milk chocolate bars, chocolate chips, and cake and brownie mixes contained unconcerning levels of lead and cadmium, but most of the dark chocolate bars, hot chocolate powders, and cocoa powders contained levels above or closer to the level of concern.
Lead and cadmium exposure can be dangerous, but you don't need to throw out your chocolate
Lead exposure can harm fetuses, cause physical and mental development issues in children, and cause reproductive issues, pain, and difficulties with memory or concentration in adults, according to the Mayo Clinic, while prolonged cadmium exposure can lead to kidney disease, fragile bones, and cancer, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But a spokesperson for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration told TODAY.com that despite the "considerable media attention" on the presence of cadmium and lead in chocolate, "experts from around the world have found that chocolate is a minor source of exposure to these contaminants internationally."
So, Consumer Reports' findings don't mean you should completely stop eating chocolate products, Dr. Melissa Melough, a nutritional epidemiologist and assistant professor of nutrition at the University of Delaware, told Insider.
"If you're eating a reasonable amount of dark chocolate, or limiting yourself to the portions that are recommended on the packaging each time that you do choose to eat it, then I wouldn't be terribly concerned about your heavy metal intake," she said.
However, Melough said that young children and people who are pregnant or breastfeeding should try to limit their exposure to heavy metals through chocolate as much as possible, because of their potential impact on fetal and childhood development.
If you're worried, choose specific products and consider switching to milk chocolate
If you eat a lot of dark chocolate, you're pregnant or breastfeeding, or you're just worried about eating heavy metals, Melough recommended opting for the products that Consumer Reports found to contain lower amounts of heavy metals, to minimize the heavy metals you ingest.
These include:
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Sam's Choice (Walmart) Dark Chocolate 85% Cocoa
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Lindt Classic Recipe Milk Chocolate Bar
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Ghirardelli Premium Baking Bittersweet Chocolate Chips 60% Cacao
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Navitas Organics Organic Cacao Powder
Melough said another way to reduce your heavy metal intake from chocolate is switching to milk chocolate, because it has a lower cocoa content. This is because chocolate is contaminated by heavy metals during the growth and processing of cocoa plants, so products with lower cocoa content tend to contain lower amounts of heavy metals, as Consumer Report's results reflected.
A spokesperson for Nestlé, which owns Perugina, told Insider that their products comply with "all applicable regulatory requirements." Hu said that they comply with "all applicable standards" by "a very large margin" in a statement.
Rick Gusmano, the co-founder of Evolved Chocolate, told Insider that the company makes sure their products contain levels of heavy metals that are well below the levels suggested in a settlement by As You Sow, a non-profit organization that tests for heavy metals and pushes for corporate responsibility around environmental health and human rights.
Walmart and Hershey's did not respond to Insider's request for comment.