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Do I need to avoid dark chocolate now?

nytimes.com

31–40 of 67 posts

Re: Do I need to avoid dark chocolate now?

#31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here are the tests consumer reports did a while back: https://www.consumerreports.org/health/food-safety/lead-and-...

Consumer Reports is just blogspam now. If you read anything they write about a topic you're expert in, you realise how much bullshit they spew. It's all just garbage to slap ads around.

I didn't see any ads on their chocolate article, and according to wikipedia they don't accept any advertising.

Re: Do I need to avoid dark chocolate now?

#32
post #25
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a matter of concentration. 80% of 100g is more than 40% of 100g. It's that simple.

How do we know that? I'd ask both us and NYT to be scientific about it. Cargo culting science: "We tested dark chocolate and it was bad" => avoid dark chocolate and no further conclusions. (Media is full of this pattern.) More rational investigation: "We tested dark chocolate and it was bad" => Find the problematic ingredient => What are the other places we use this ingredient?

Read reports and don't expect media to throw numbers and mathematical proofs. They are a business and have to cater to general public who don't really understand or care.

Re: Do I need to avoid dark chocolate now?

#33
post #28

Homer Simpson suggestion: what if we put massive magnets in the production process?

That is in fact quite common in food production, but all it accomplishes is removing metal filings from processing machinery. It can't remove molecular metal contamination from the food itself. Also, lead isn't ferrous.

Thanks! Was hoping someone would break that down.

Re: Do I need to avoid dark chocolate now?

#34
post #25
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a matter of concentration. 80% of 100g is more than 40% of 100g. It's that simple.

How do we know that? I'd ask both us and NYT to be scientific about it. Cargo culting science: "We tested dark chocolate and it was bad" => avoid dark chocolate and no further conclusions. (Media is full of this pattern.) More rational investigation: "We tested dark chocolate and it was bad" => Find the problematic ingredient => What are the other places we use this ingredient?

The metals come from the cacao, and milk chocolate has much less cacao by volume, because it is diluted by lots of milk solids and sugar. Unless there are also surprising amounts of metal in milk/sugar, why would they need to be more rigorous about investigating milk chocolate?

Re: Do I need to avoid dark chocolate now?

#35
This article doesn’t mention that the levels are well above the CA legal limits, or whether those limits are useful/relevant. It also doesn’t explain if the body ever purges these metals, or how the contamination occurs (IIRC, the lead is suspected to be deposited on drying beans that are roadside, and the cadmium is from the soil.)

Are there any more comprehensive articles? I don’t find the recommendation here to be especially convincing or well-researched.

Re: Do I need to avoid dark chocolate now?

#37

The main issue here is how we pretend to recycle batteries and electronic components while what we really do is dumping them to African countries such as Ivory Coast, Ghana which are the very same countries that produce the highest amount of Cacao. Stop buying new electronic stuff / computer / gadgets / appliances every other years guys. This whole scheme of growth and making and buying new things while we still have…

I don’t see anything in the linked article to suggest that the heavy metals in chocolate come from industrial use. Isn’t the cadmium simply naturally occurring in the soil? If you have any links to share, I’d appreciate it.

Re: Do I need to avoid dark chocolate now?

#38
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do we know that? I'd ask both us and NYT to be scientific about it. Cargo culting science: "We tested dark chocolate and it was bad" => avoid dark chocolate and no further conclusions. (Media is full of this pattern.) More rational investigation: "We tested dark chocolate and it was bad" => Find the problematic ingredient => What are the other places we use this ingredient?

The metals come from the cacao, and milk chocolate has much less cacao by volume, because it is diluted by lots of milk solids and sugar. Unless there are also surprising amounts of metal in milk/sugar, why would they need to be more rigorous about investigating milk chocolate?

One could speculate around cocoa butter, which is replaced by cheaper fats in cheaper and milk chocolate. But that's just me wondering, trying to make sense of why dark chocolate in particular.

Re: Do I need to avoid dark chocolate now?

#39
post #32
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do we know that? I'd ask both us and NYT to be scientific about it. Cargo culting science: "We tested dark chocolate and it was bad" => avoid dark chocolate and no further conclusions. (Media is full of this pattern.) More rational investigation: "We tested dark chocolate and it was bad" => Find the problematic ingredient => What are the other places we use this ingredient?

Read reports and don't expect media to throw numbers and mathematical proofs. They are a business and have to cater to general public who don't really understand or care.

Great media stories bring the reports to a scientist in the field and have them contextualise it. In fact neither the journalist or the laypeople (us here) can do better than that by themselves, in general.

But yes, stories are mass produced and nobody has the time for that.

Re: Do I need to avoid dark chocolate now?

#40
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The metals come from the cacao, and milk chocolate has much less cacao by volume, because it is diluted by lots of milk solids and sugar. Unless there are also surprising amounts of metal in milk/sugar, why would they need to be more rigorous about investigating milk chocolate?

One could speculate around cocoa butter, which is replaced by cheaper fats in cheaper and milk chocolate. But that's just me wondering, trying to make sense of why dark chocolate in particular.

It’s because the contamination is in the cacao beans. Dark chocolate is 70 or more percent cacao, while milk chocolate is much, much less.
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