2 Metals Might Be Hiding In Dark Chocolate, Investigation Finds

With the holiday season heating up, you may be set on preparing a treasure trove of sweets for Christmas — and your baking plans likely include chocolate. But although YouGovAmerica finds that milk chocolate is America's choco treat of choice, if you or your friends tend to grab the darker variety to make hot cocoa cookies, beware. According to TODAY, after launching a full-scale investigation, Consumer Reports found that two potentially dangerous metals may have made a home in your candy bar.

You're likely familiar with lead and its dangers, particularly to children (per the CDC) but have you heard of Cadmium? As TODAY reports, this metal is known for its potential to cause cancer and kidney disease. And as you may have guessed, Consumer Reports revealed that during their investigation, which was published on December 15, they discovered these two metals in some of America's most familiar dark chocolate bar brands. Here's the breakdown of the report.

According to TODAY, Consumer Reports tested 28 dark chocolate bars for cadmium and lead. Shockingly, they discovered that the two metals were present in every single bar they investigated. However, 23 bars had a high enough amount of cadmium and lead to pose a risk to chocolate lovers' health.

As noted in the report, having just an ounce (or roughly one chocolate square per Foodly) of any of these 23 bars daily can put someone in danger of suffering health consequences from either lead or cadmium. And favorites like Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Lover's Chocolate 85% Cacao and Hershey's Lily's Extremely Dark Chocolate 85% Cocoa were among the dark chocolate bars Consumer Reports found contained the highest amount of these metals. 

Don't worry though, as there's no need to put down your dark chocolate butter toffee for good. Consumer Reports also released a list of the dark chocolate bars it found had lower levels of these two metals. And these safer sweets include familiar brand Ghirardelli's Intense Dark Chocolate 86% Cacao and even organic-based Mast Organic Dark Chocolate 80% Cocoa. 

The organization states that you can even enjoy the bars that have a high metal content in small doses. So you still may want to monitor the amount of dark chocolate you're savoring throughout the holidays.