These heavy metals make their way into your chocolate through the cacao bean, said Danielle Fugere, president and chief counsel at As You Sow, a nonprofit that worked with the chocolate industry to produce an investigative report on heavy metals in chocolate in 2022. Read More →
Read MoreThe chocolate industry and its watchdogs have been looking for solutions since a corporate accountability group based in California called As You Sow began finding lead and cadmium in dark chocolate in 2014. After years of litigation, As you Sow and the industry agreed to conduct a study to understand how metals are getting into chocolate and how to fix it. Read More →
Read MoreChristopher Gindlesperger, a spokesperson for the National Confectioners Association — which represents chocolate manufactures including Hershey's, Lindt and Godiva — referred NPR to its Dec. 16 statement, which said, "The products cited in this study are in compliance with strict quality and safety requirements, and the levels provided to us by Consumer Reports testing are well under the limits established by our settlement with As You Sow" Read More →
Read MoreFor lead, that will mean changes in harvesting and manufacturing practices, says Danielle Fugere, president of As You Sow. Such practices could include minimizing soil contact with beans as they lie in the sun, and drying beans on tables or clean tarps away from roads or with protective covers, so lead-contaminated dust won’t land on them. Another option is finding ways to remove metal contaminants when beans are cleaned at factories, Fugere says. Read More →
Read MoreThe result of a three-year study by a multi-disciplinary panel of four experts into the sources of lead and cadmium in cocoa and chocolate - and how levels may be reduced in the future - has been published by the National Confectioners Association (NCA) and nonprofit organization As You Sow. Read More →
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