Overview
Vanderschueren and colleagues measured 33 elements by ICP-MS in 139 single origin chocolates bought in 2018 and related them to cacao content and cacao origin. Cadmium was highest in chocolates made with South American cacao, and 16 chocolates exceeded the EU cadmium limit of 0.80 mg/kg. Lead was below quantification in 60 percent of samples, with six samples at or above 0.10 mg/kg. The file is the authors’ accepted manuscript, not the typeset article.
Key numbers
- Cadmium mean ± SD: South America 0.58 ± 0.52 mg/kg (n = 69), Central America 0.33 ± 0.30, Africa 0.20 ± 0.11, Asia Pacific 0.12 ± 0.07 mg/kg (Table 3).
- Highest cadmium: 2.61 mg/kg, Colombian cacao chocolate bought in Belgium (Section 3.2, line 256).
- Lead: below LOQ (0.02 mg/kg) in 60 percent of samples; highest 0.68 mg/kg in a Peruvian cacao chocolate (Section 3.2, lines 221 to 225).
- Nickel: 0.3 to 12.5 mg/kg; regional means 3.2 to 4.6 mg/kg (Section 3.2; Table 3). Arsenic below 0.08 mg/kg in all samples.
Methods (brief)
Grated chocolate (100 mg) was digested in nitric acid in an open block and measured by collision-cell ICP-MS. Quality control used NIST 2384 baking chocolate and ERM-BD512 dark chocolate (recoveries 79 to 102 percent, reported in a supplement that is not in the file) and duplicates every 15 samples.
Evidence Fitness
A good-sized, well-controlled ICP-MS survey of dark and milk single origin chocolate, though skewed toward South American cacao and Belgian retail. Supplementary Table S2, which holds lead medians and ranges by region, is not in the file, so lead is only available as the six listed high values. The PDF is an author manuscript without journal pagination; the DOI comes from the manifest. Chocolate bars are a proxy for chocolate pudding and chocolate nut candy (the study excluded chocolates with nuts), so those pages are not linked.