Lead in Chocolate

This is the latest concerning dark chocolate:

"Chocolates are among the more lead-contaminated foods. A new study has probed the source of chocolate's lead and concludes it's not the cocoa bean. Its concentrations of the toxic metal were among the lowest recorded for any foodstuff.



Missing from the label of chocolate candies...is any notice that such treats have a surprise contaminant: the toxic metal lead. Dark chocolates tend to have the most lead.



Even after completion of the study, however, the major source remains unidentified, notes study leader Charley W. Rankin of the University of California, Santa Cruz. That's too bad, the environmental chemist says, because since it's nevertheless obvious that most of chocolate's lead isn't from cocoa beans when they're picked, the contaminant should be easy to eliminate—once scientists pin down at what stage of chocolate production it originates.



How serious is the lead problem? "I'm not going to suggest that you curb your chocolate consumption," says Rankin. For most people, he says, the amount of lead in even the more-tainted chocolates isn't high enough to cause health problems. However, he worries, for young children or elderly individuals living with lead-tainted pipes or paint, eating lots of chocolate could aggravate health risks by offering an unnecessary additional source of the metal.



The new study shows that dark chocolates, including bittersweet and semisweet candies, had the highest lead concentrations—roughly 30 to 70 nanograms of the heavy metal per gram versus just 11 to 35 ng/g in milk chocolate. Dark chocolates are the types frequently used in gourmet confections and in most chocolate chip cookies. They also contain the highest concentrations of heart-friendly chemicals.



To the Santa Cruz scientists, the interesting question has become: At which point does most of the lead enter constituents of chocolate—in the field, after harvest, during shipping, during some other stage? At present, they have no answers."