Chocoholics Beware, That Dreamy Sweet May Not Be So Good For Your Health
We all love chocolate but dark chocolate’s dark underside is enough to make Willy Wonka go cold turkey off of the sweet delight.
Many people choose dark chocolate for its potential health benefits, as studies suggest its rich supply of antioxidants may improve heart health and other conditions, and for its relatively low levels of sugar. But dark chocolate may also carry its own dangers.
Two class action lawsuits claim that Trader Joe’s, the consumer-friendly California-based supermarket chain, has been selling dark chocolate with unsafe, potentially toxic levels of lead and cadmium.
A pair of class action lawsuits filed in federal court in New York on Jan. 6 claims that Trader Joe’s has been selling two brands with unsafe levels of heavy metals, including Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate and Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Lover’s Chocolate.
Consumer Reports said that consistent, long-term exposure to even small amounts of heavy metals can lead to a variety of health problems. The danger is greatest for pregnant people and young children because the metals can cause developmental problems, affect brain development, and lead to lower IQ. Frequent exposure to lead in adults can lead to nervous system problems, hypertension, immune system suppression, kidney damage, and reproductive issues.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considers cadmium to be a “cancer-causing agent” and warns that exposure over time through air, food, water and tobacco smoke “may build up cadmium in the kidneys and cause kidney disease and fragile bones.” The CDC also notes that “no safe blood lead level in children has been identified” and that even low levels have been found to impair “a child’s intelligence, ability to pay attention, and academic achievement.”
One lawsuit was filed on behalf of New York City resident Tamakia Herd while another was filed by a Long Island man, Thomas Ferrante. Ferrante is seeking $550 in damages for every time he or others in the suit bought Trader Joe’s chocolate.
A report by Consumer Reports found that Trader Joe’s “Dark Chocolate Lover’s Chocolate 85 percent Cacao” contained 229 percent of California’s maximum allowable level of cadmium and 127 percent of the state’s threshold for lead. The company’s “Dark Chocolate 72 percent Cacao” was found to contain 192 percent of the benchmark for lead.
Herb filed a similar lawsuit last month against Hershey, which makes another of the chocolate bars that were flagged in the Consumer Reports testing. Hershey’s “Special Dark Mildly Sweet Chocolate” was found to have 265 percent of California’s maximum allowable dose of lead.
The limits are defined by California’s Proposition 65, the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act, which requires that companies disclose when their products contain chemicals that can lead to cancer, reproductive harm, or birth defects if they leak into the water supply.
The FDA said dark chocolate tends to have higher lead levels than milk chocolate because chocolate liquor is the main source of lead in chocolate products.
Both suits cite a Dec. 15, 2022, story in Consumer Reports warning that although dark chocolate is known to have certain health benefits, the chocolate industry has struggled to lower cadmium and lead levels in products. Consumer Reports measured heavy metal levels in 28 dark chocolate bars and found five had above the safe threshold for both cadmium and lead, including one from Trader Joe’s.
It is not the first time that Trader Joe’s has been found to have chocolate products with lead and/or cadmium above the safety threshhold as defined by California’s Proposition 65,
In 2015, an independent laboratory tested 127 chocolate products and found that 96 of them contained lead and/or cadmium above the safety threshold. Based on the results, the non-profit, “As You Sow,” filed notices with more than 20 companies, including Ghirardelli and Trader Joe’s, for failing to provide the legally required warning to consumers that their chocolate products contain cadmium, lead, or both. “As You Sow” is a non-profit foundation chartered in 1992 to promote corporate social responsibility through shareholder advocacy, coalition building, and legal strategies.
The suit was settled in 2018 requiring a joint study to investigate and report on the main sources of lead and cadmium in dark chocolate. Companies that were part of the negotiation include Barry Callebaut, Blommer Chocolate, Cargill, Hershey, Lindt, Mars, and Nestlé and others.
Lead and cadmium are difficult to rid from dark chocolate products because cacao plants can take in cadmium from the soil as they grow, according to the lawsuits. Lead is found on the outer shell of the cacao bean post-harvest while cacao plants take up cadmium from the soil, with the metal accumulating in cacao beans as the tree grows. Researchers found that lead was typically on the outer shell of the cocoa bean, not in the bean itself and that lead levels were low soon after beans were picked and removed from pods but increased as beans dried in the sun for days, as lead-filled dust and dirt accumulated on the beans.
Researchers said it isn’t “inevitable” that heavy metals would be present in dangerous levels as other dark chocolate brands were found to have levels that met safety standards.
Trader Joe’s was characterized in a 2006 New York Times story as “notoriously secretive” and was criticized for a lack of transparency by management about the sources of products such as organic milk. Trader Joe’s scored the lowest on Green America’s 2019 chocolate scorecard, as the retailer shares little about addressing child labor or deforestation caused by the chocolate it sells.
Trader Joe’s also entered into a 2016 settlement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Justice, for violating the Clean Air Act by emitting high global warming potential (GWP) and ozone-depleting refrigerants. The company was required to cut its emissions and create a process to track and repair refrigerants. The company has not publicly discussed its progress to reduce leak rates or climate emissions.
The rankings by Consumer Reports showed that dark chocolate with the highest levels of lead and cadmium included: Beyond Good’s Organic Pure Dark Chocolate had 42 percent of lead limits and 138 percent, cadmium. Equal Exchange’s Organic Extra Dark Chocolate tested at 45 percent of the allowed limit and 120 percent of cadmium. Lindt’s Excellence Dark Chocolate had 48 percent of the lead limit and 116 percent of cadmium. Scharffen Berger’s Extra Dark Chocolate tested at 49 percent of allowed lead levels and 136 percent of cadmium levels.
Alter Eco’s Organic Dark Chocolate Classic Blackout had 49 percent of permitted lead levels and 204 percent of cadmium. Pascha’s Organic Very Dark Dark Chocolate tested at 68 percent of permitted lead and 253 percent of cadmium. Dove’s Promises Deeper Dark Chocolate had 74 percent of permitted lead and 112 percent of cadmium. Tony’s Chocolonely, a Dutch company, showed its Chocolonely Dark Chocolate at 134 percent of lead levels and 28 percent, cadmium.
Lily’s Extra Dark Chocolate’s lead level was 144 percent of allowed amounts and 42 percent of cadmium levels. Godiva’s Signature Dark Chocolate came in at 146 percent of lead and 25 percent of cadmium.
Chocolove’s Strong Dark Chocolate had 152 percent of lead and 60 percent of cadmium levels. Lindt’s Excellence Dark Chocolate had 166 percent of permissible lead and 80 percent of cadmium.
Endangered Species of Oregon’s Bold + Silky Dark Chocolate came in at 181 percent of lead levels and 31 percent of cadmium. Hu’s Organic Simple Dark Chocolate had lead levels 210 percent above the permitted limit and cadmium at 56 percent of the limit.
Chocolove, based in Boulder, Colo., sells its Extreme Dark Chocolate brand with 240 percent of the lead limit and 83 percent of the cadmium level. Hershey’s Special Dark Mildly Sweet Chocolate had lead levels at 265 percent of the permitted level and 30 percent of the permitted cadmium level.
Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate came in at 192 percent of the lead limit and 36 percent of the cadmium level. Hu’s Organic Simple Dark Chocolate had lead levels 210 percent above the permitted limit and cadmium at 56 percent of the limit.
Theo Organic Pure Dark came in at 120 percent of lead levels and 142 percent of cadmium. Trader Joe’s The Dark Chocolate Lover’s Chocolate had 127 percent of lead and 229 percent of cadmium. Theo Organic Extra Dark Pure Dark Chocolate tested at 140 percent for lead and 189 percent, cadmium. Lily’s Extremely Dark Chocolate was 143 percent of lead levels and 101 percent of cadmium. Green & Black’s Organic Dark Chocolate had 143 percent of lead and 181 percent of cadmium.
The dark chocolates which tested at safely below the permitted levels included Mast Organic Dark Chocolate, 14 percent lead and 40 percent cadmium; Taza Chocolate’s Organic Deliciously Dark Chocolate had 33 percent of the lead limit and 74 percent of cadmium; Ghirardelli’s Intense Dark Chocolate had 36 percent of lead and 39 percent of cadmium levels; Ghirardelli’s Intense Dark Chocolate Twilight Delight had 61 percent of accepted lead and 96 percent of cadmium; and Valrhona Abinao Dark Chocolate tested at 63 percent of lead limits and 73 percent of cadmium.
In another issue related to chocolate production, nearly two decades after the world’s major chocolate manufacturers pledged to abolish employment abuses, a new report found that more than 43 percent of all children between 5 and 17 in the world’s largest cocoa-growing regions of Ghana and Ivory Coast, are engaged in hazardous work and many are enslaved. The top five chocolate companies to employee child labor are Hershey’s, Fowler’s Chocolate, Nestles, Godiva and Mars.
In past years the major chocolate companies have been pressured to sign on to various agreements to limit child labor in the cocoa fields. But a Washington Post report found that children as young as 12 were taken by bus from Burkina Faso to work in cocoa fields in Ivory Coast. The Post reported that the world’s chocolate companies have missed deadlines to uproot child labor from their cocoa supply chains in 2005, 2008, 2010 and 2011.
Despite the agreements, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of chocolate companies when it decided in June 2021 that Nestlé USA and Cargill could not be held responsible for young children forced to pick cocoa beans up to 14 hours a day for little or no pay, thousands of miles from corporate headquarters.
At least 16,000 children, and perhaps many more, are forced to work on West African cocoa farms by people other than their parents, according to estimates from a 2018 survey led by a Tulane University researcher.
About two-thirds of the world’s cocoa supply comes from West Africa where more than 2 million children were engaged in dangerous labor in cocoa-growing regions, according to a 2015 U.S. Labor Department report. The Post reported that representatives of some of the biggest and best-known brands like Hershey, Mars and Nestlé could not guarantee that any of their chocolates were produced without child labor. Factors that companies say make it is difficult to avoid child labor included difficulties in tracing the farms where the cocoa is harvested and whether child labor was used; and a lack of reliable oversight at cocoa farms.
Research from the independent research institution, NORC at the University of Chicago, shows that young children who work in cocoa production in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana are subjected to dangerous conditions, including the use of use of sharp tools like machetes, working at night and exposure to agrochemical products, among other harmful activities.
The report, commissioned by the U.S. Department of Labor, notes that the overall proportion of children working in the two countries has gone up by 14 percentage points in the past decade. The increase is accompanied by a 62 percent rise in production over the same period.
Organicauthority.com reported in 2019 on five chocolate brands that are most transparent in not relying on child labor. They include:
1. Alter Eco
Alter Eco, based in Melbourne, Australia, markets chocolate bars and truffles made with cacao sourced from South America where, according to Food is Power, it is less likely that cacao is farmed using child labor. The company has various certifications, from Fair Trade to USDA organic to B Corp. The company was ranked second on the 2022 Chocolate Scorecard which rates chocolate companies according to their human rights and environmental credentials: traceability and transparency, living income for cocoa farmers, absence of child labor, deforestation and climate, agroforestry and agrochemical management
2. Divine
Divine Chocolate Limited is a British purveyor of Fairtrade chocolate. It was originally established in 1998 as a company co-owned by the Kuapa Kokoo cocoa farmers’ co-operative in Ghana, Twin Trading and The Body Shop, with support from Christian Aid and Comic Relief. The Body Shop subsequently handed their shares over to Kuapa Kokoo which increased Kuapa’s share of Divine Chocolate Ltd from 33 to 45 percent. Divine Chocolate claims that its trading system is unique in that farmers own the biggest stake in the company and share its profit.
3. Endangered Species
Endangered Species chocolate uses fair trade methods and donates 10 percent of its net profits to partner organizations protecting species and habitat conservation. The cacao is sourced from Rainforest Alliance-certified cacao farms in West Africa, and it is the first chocolate company to source all of its cocoa from West Africa through Fairtrade.
4. Theo
Theo is dedicated to the production of ethical, sustainable, artisan chocolate and works in partnership with organizations like the Eastern Congo Initiative, the Jane Goodall Institute, and the World Bicycle Relief. Theo is the first company to own and manage its own fair trade bean-to-bar chocolate factory, allowing the company to pay above-market prices to farmers in Peru and the Democratic Republic of the Congo and control the quality of its product from beginning to end. Theo Chocolate, based in Seattle, Wash., is the first organic fair trade-certified cocoa producer in the United States.
5. Madécasse
The chocolate bars are produced and hand-wrapped in Madagascar, an initiative that has enabled Madécasse to create 200 jobs on the ground.
Beyond Good, formerly Madécasse, is a Brooklyn-based chocolate and vanilla company established in 2006 by two Peace Corps volunteers who served in Madagascar. The company sells a range of single origin chocolate bars and vanilla products, sourced from the island of Madagascar, and introduced a new line of Ugandan chocolate bars in early 2020. All of the cocoa is certified direct trade and is sourced directly from Malagasy and Ugandan cocoa farmers.
Beyond Good was named a Leader of Global Change in 2012 by the United Nations and Foundation for Social Change. In 2022, it received the Good Egg Award on the 2022 Chocolate Scorecard for its work with human rights and environmental issues such as traceability and transparency, living income, child labor, deforestation and climate, agroforestry and agrochemical management.