Lead Contamination in Chocolate

Chocolate is one of those natural foods that are particularly good for you. Sure there are the normal consequences for eating too much of it, because contrary to popular belief, one can have too much of a good thing but is one of the foods that is chockfull of good things for the body.

But now chocolate is actually starting to become a bad thing, at least the processed one is, especially for your children and too much could be very bad indeed.

In recent years there has been increasing concern about elemental lead findings in chocolate confectionaries. Raw cocoa is one of the foods found to have the lowest concentrations of lead in it. But the same can not be said for processed chocolate such as cocoa powder and candy bars.

Lead contamination has been a problem in some other food as well and steps were taken to remove lead from the environment, one being to remove lead from gasoline to reduce gaseous lead emissions into the air but researchers continue to find elevated amounts of lead in manufactured chocolate.

Reports by COPAL (Cocoa Producer's Alliance) are consistent with studies done in Australia and New Zealand reflecting elevated lead concentrations. COPAL, which is based in Nigeria, is responsible for 75% of the world's chocolate. Most of our contaminated chocolate is from Nigeria.

Because most countries in Africa still use leaded gasoline, the lead emissions are a large contributor to the chocolate contamination. However, cocoa pods, which are particularly absorbent to lead, help greatly in keeping the lead out of the cocoa beans which are used to make the chocolate. But when these raw materials are taken elsewhere and processed, care apparently isn't taken to prevent the transfer of lead from the pods to the beans. The machines and techniques use to manufacture the chocolate are contributors to the problem as well.

Now you may wonder just how much lead is in the chocolate and how dangerous is it.

In 1991 the Center for Disease Control decided that the maximum amount of lead that can be considered safe in a child's body is 10 micrograms per deciliter of blood. However damage has been seen to occur at lower levels.

Careful examination of chocolate labels and manufacturing regulations reveal that if a toddler of say 33lb was to consume an average cup of hot cocoa that is of average lead concentration, he will have consumed 3% of the acceptable amount of lead for the week. At maximum permissible concentrations, that would jump to 12% for one cup of cocoa.

The reason why lead contamination is such a big deal where children are concerned is because lead, when it has accumulated in the body, interferes with normal neurological functions causing irreversible damage to a child's ability to learn, especially the ability to retain new information.

In addition to mental retardation, lead poisoning can lead to death.

Cases of acute lead poisoning can cause digestive problems like constipation, and weight loss. This may be why some children who consume chocolate often, have been found to be frequently constipated.

Lead is a heavy metal that is removed from the body very slowly, so in the case of this chocolate contamination, a lot of chocolate in a short period of time can definitely do damage.

I don't think we need to cut out chocolate completely, but we should definitely watch how much we eat and how much our children eat especially. We might also benefit from opting for raw chocolate instead of processed chocolate from time to time.

It's really sad that this sort of important information is not made known to the public by default. It is our right to know what we eat and what dangers it may pose to our bodies.

Sources

http://www.ehponline.org/members/2005/8009/8009.html

Environmental Health Perspectives Volume 113, Number 10, October 2005

Lead Contamination in Cocoa and Cocoa Products: Isotopic Evidence of Global Contamination

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_poisoning

Lead Poisoning

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocolate

Chocolate