‘Nooo! Those are all the brands I thought were better for us!’
Posted on November 2, 2024 1:00 PM CDT
It’s a little known fact that some chocolate is full of harmful metals. According to The chocolate professorLead can end up in the cocoa beans from which dark chocolate is made, because the beans dry in the sun. Meanwhile, cadmium is absorbed from the soil in which cocoa trees grow.
Featured video
In the middle of one recent lawsuit on this issueAngela(@thelawyerangela), TikTok’s favorite lawyer, shared a screen capture from the website Consumer Reports. She focused mainly on four parts of the site: a list of chocolates that were high in lead, high in cadium, high in both, and finally the chocolates that were significantly lower in both.
“Now if you look at the number next to the red bar, that percentage corresponds to (how much metal) is in one ounce of these dark chocolate bars, compared to the maximum allowable dose level in California for an entire day,” she says.
Chocolate bars with high lead content include Hu (210%), Hershey’s (265%), and Lily’s (144%). She then shared the products with high cadmium content. These include Beyond Good (112%), Equal Exchange (120%) and Scraffen Berger 136%. Bars with too much of both included Theo, Trader Joes, Lily’s and Green & Black.
Finally, Angela shared a list of the chocolate bars with the lowest amounts of lead and cadmium. These were Mast, Taza, Ghiradelli and Valrhona.
Viewers react to the news
Many commenters pointed out that they had no such lists for chocolate made in Britain and New Zealand. However, those to whom the list did apply were shocked.
“For God’s sake. I already eat a square of dark chocolate a day!” wrote one.
“I’ve been eating dark chocolate for years because it was ‘healthy’,” echoed another.
While a third complained: “nothing is safe.”
Angela did not immediately respond to Daily Dot’s request for comment via TikTok comments and email.
@thelawyerangela In reply to @CaseyAnthonyDaycare #darkchocolate #chocolate #ghirardelli #godiva #huchocolate #traderjoes #cocoa #lindt #court case #classaction #heavymetals #chocolateover #consumer #explanation #cancer #heavymetals ♬ original sound – LAWYER Angela
What is the Lindt & Sprüngli lawsuit?
In one viral videolawyer Kathleen Martinez(@attorneymartinez) explained why Lindt & Sprüngli was facing legal problems.
The company is reportedly being sued for false advertising, deceptive practices and “many other violations of consumer law.” As she noted, the class action lawsuit alleges that the brand’s chocolate may contain heavy metals, which can become harmful over time.
According to Martinez, they found “significant levels” of lead and cadmium in the company’s chocolate; and Lindt & Sprüngli reportedly knew this back in 2014. So if you bought Lindt & Sprüngli chocolate, you may be part of a class action lawsuit.
In an email to the Daily Dot, a spokesperson for Lindt shared the following statement:
“We are aware of the lawsuit that has been filed. Lindt & Sprüngli intends to vigorously defend itself against these entirely unproven challenges to our products. Like all our products, our EXCELLENCE 85% and EXCELLENCE 70% chocolate bars meet strict quality and food safety requirements and are safe to consume.”
Internet culture is chaotic, but we’ll explain it for you in one daily email. Sign up for Daily Dot’s web_crawlr newsletter here. You’ll get the best (and worst) of the internet straight to your inbox.