Get a daily digest of the latest news in tech, science, and technology, delivered right to your mailbox. Subscribe now.on Wednesday that they had tested 28 dark chocolate bars for lead and cadmium and had found high amounts of the heavy metals in many of them.Like many other foods, chocolate occasionally contains traces of heavy metals. A number of factors may contribute to this presence, depending on the type of heavy metal.
Cadmium can build up in cocoa beans, mostly from the soil that the plants grow in. Cadmium is a hazardous heavy metal that, like lead, can be harmful to health if ingested in significant amounts over an extended period of time. In its latest tests, Consumer Reports used California's maximum allowed dosage limit for cadmium and lead to assess the risk associated with the chocolates. Among the chocolates found to contain dangerous amounts of heavy metals were Lindt, Trader Joe’s and Hershey.