Hey there and welcome to the Nutrition Diva podcast. I'm your host Monica Reinegel, and

this week's show is about chocolate. Now, you may be thinking, wait a minute, I already

heard this episode, but don't touch that dial. You are right. I did recently have an

episode about the difference between powdered cacao and cocoa powder. But the day after

that episode was released, consumer reports published their findings that many popular brands

of dark chocolate contained concerning amounts of lead and cadmium. And my inbox filled up with

emails from listeners asking how to evaluate or avoid this threat. So today I have part two of my

unplanned series on the benefits and risks of chocolate. Specifically, how worried should you be

about overexposure to heavy metals from your favorite chocolate bar? A lot of health-conscious people

I know consider dark chocolate to be a healthy indulgence. The flavonols it contains offer a wide

variety of benefits, and dark chocolate tends to be relatively low in sugar. And for me anyway,

it is a treat that it's easier to enjoy in limited quantities. I mean, I can pound a bag of

M&Ms, but I rarely reach for more than one or at most two squares of dark chocolate.

But now, what about these warnings about lead and cadmium is even a single ounce of dark chocolate

too much to have on a daily basis? The first thing you need to know is that virtually all chocolate

contains some amount of lead and or cadmium. Cadmium is absorbed from the soil by the cacao trees,

and it makes its way into the cacao beans themselves. And then the harvested beans are exposed

to lead in the air and the soil, mostly during the drying and the fermenting process.

But chocolate is not the only food that contains heavy metals, fruits, vegetables, juices,

sea vegetables, nutritional supplements, and protein powders have all been found to contain

lead or cadmium. And indeed, there's no way to completely avoid exposure to these elements.

They're in the air, the water, the soil, where our food is grown. That said, high exposure to these

...