posted
From the above links: The American Environmental Safety Institute said it is suing chocolate makers, including Hershey Foods Corp. and Mars Inc., for not disclosing that their products contain enough lead and cadmium to pose a serious health risk-a disclosure required by California law.
The chocolate companies dismissed the lawsuit as frivolous and alarmist, saying the amount of lead and cadmium in candy bars and instant hot chocolate is no more than in other common foods because the metals are naturally occurring.
The California legislation known as Prop 65 has set a "safe harbor" limit for lead at 0.5 ug/day. ************************************************
Chocolate is perfectly safe, according to the FDA, food safety experts and the California Attorney General.
* Scientists and doctors at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Harvard University's School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School agree that tiny amounts of lead (and cadmium) in chocolate pose no risk.
* Minerals such as lead and cadmium are part of nature. Trace amounts of these minerals are found everywhere including our soil and water. That's why virtually all the foods we eat every day contain tiny, harmless amounts of naturally occurring minerals.
* The amount of naturally occurring lead in chocolate is so miniscule that a person is not physically capable of eating an amount of chocolate that would even begin to adversely effect their health. People have been eating various quantities of cocoa and chocolate for centuries with no evidence of a single incident of concern regarding naturally occurring lead.
http://www.pepperlaw.com/publications_update.aspx?ArticleKey=1129 ************************************************* Last sentence says it all for me. California can set limits if they'd like. Anyone who would like to curb their chocolate consumption feel free, all the more for me
emla999/Lyme
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 12606
posted
According to researchers at the University of Michigan and the University of California the majority of the LEAD found in manufactured chocolate and cocoa products is not naturally occurring.
Much of the LEAD comes from the LEADED gasoline emissions during the fermentation and sun-drying of unshelled beans at the cocoa farms.
"However, the much higher lead concentrations and larger variability in lead isotopic composition of finished cocoa products, which falls within the global range of industrial lead aerosols, most contamination occurs during shipping and/or processing of the cocoa beans and the manufacture of cocoa and chocolate products."
"The average lead concentration of cocoa beans was ≤ 0.5 ng/g, which is one of the lowest reported values for a natural food. In contrast, lead concentrations of manufactured cocoa and chocolate products were as high as 230 and 70 ng/g, respectively."Posts: 1223 | From U.S.A | Registered: Jul 2007
| IP: Logged |
Keebler
Honored Contributor (25K+ posts)
Member # 12673
posted
-
Not ALL chocolate does. You can contact a company for their testing standards and test records.
You can also find out the source of the beans and how they are grown and where they are processed (near a highway? not good!)
The Lyme Disease Network is a non-profit organization funded by individual donations. If you would like to support the Network and the LymeNet system of Web services, please send your donations to:
The
Lyme Disease Network of New Jersey 907 Pebble Creek Court,
Pennington,
NJ08534USA http://www.lymenet.org/
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic