It’s a little-known fact that some chocolate is full of harmful metals. According to The Chocolate Professor, when cacao beans dry in the sun, lead can enter the beans used to make dark chocolate.
Cadmium, meanwhile, is taken up from the soil that cacao trees are planted in. The “Lindt Excellence Dark Chocolate 70% Cocoa bar” and the “Lindt Excellence Dark Chocolate 85% Cocoa bar” are produced, marketed, and sold by the defendant Lindt.
Certain dark chocolate bars, such as Lindt’s 70% and 85% bars, had extremely high levels of lead and cadmium, according to a Consumer Reports article published in December 2022.
Background
A report has found high quantities of heavy metals in Lindt’s dark chocolate. The packaging and marketing for the chocolate bars include the following representations:
• The bars are “expertly crafted with the finest ingredients;”
• “Top quality is particularly important in the meticulous selection of [Lindt’s] raw materials;”
• “premium chocolate products are safe, as well as delightful;”
The article stated that “eating just an ounce a day would put an adult over a level that public health authorities and Consumer Reports’ experts say may be harmful.”
Effect of heavy metal
Long-term exposure to these metals can cause immunity, developmental, and neurological problems, among other long-term health effects.
Date : 16th November 2024
Time : 10:00 AM – 05:00 PM
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