[supertofu]

A consumer report not too long ago found cadmium at unsafe levels in many dark chocolate brands: https://www.consumerreports.org/health/food-safety/lead-and-...

The cacao was contaminated with cadmium from the soil during harvest.

[duffpkg]

In short the article and conclusions are a total mess and made a nice attention grabbing headline with little to no substance.

As someone that has built and managed clinical laboratories for human samples, I find this article from consumer reports extremely misleading. The describe results as a percentage of a theoretically acceptable level. For example, for cadmium, they are saying an acceptable level is 4.1 ug/day . Then they seem to imply that "TJ The Dark Chocolate Lover's Chocolate 85% Cacao" has 229% of the 4.1ug/day if a consumer ate a 30g piece.

They never actually spell out what they mean or what the actual results they found were, or what the limit of detection of the methodology was or the error range of their tests. I guess they are saying that that chocolate has 9.3ug of cadmium in a 30g sample but it's impossible to say from what they wrote.

The FDA states that the maximum daily consumption of cadmium should be limited to 0.21-0.36ug per kg of body mass. For an avg american male that would mean a threshold of 17.64-30.24ug/day. A typical salad containing 250g of romaine lettuce has 2-14ug of cadmium in it. Lettuce and cereal grains are the most common sources of cadmium in american diets.

The amounts we are talking about are extraordinarily small and difficult to measure. We are talking 5-100 quadrillion individual atoms of cadmium.

https://article.images.consumerreports.org/image/upload/v167... https://www.fda.gov/food/environmental-contaminants-food/cad....

[Waterluvian]

> The amounts we are talking about are extraordinarily small and difficult to measure. We are talking 5-100 quadrillion individual atoms of cadmium.

I get what you’re saying but I think it’s kind of funny how impossible it is for a layperson to have any clue if that number is a lot or a little.

[Bluestein]

> Lettuce and cereal grains are the most common sources of cadmium in american diets.

Lettuce has cadmium. TIL.-

> threshold of 17.64-30.24ug/day.

So; it I am not mistaken; by these measurements the amount claimed to be contained in the article, for chocolate; would be within bounds ...

(It's just you then could not go ahead and have a salad :)

[gruez]

>The amounts we are talking about are extraordinarily small and difficult to measure. We are talking 5-100 quadrillion individual atoms of cadmium.

In short you're saying that the CR numbers are suspicious because they're near the limits of what labs can detect? Is there some source you can provide for this?

[Anotheroneagain]

CC Patterson in fact likely found out that the balance of lead isotopes was impossible, and the "heavy metals" were removed to hide the evidence.

Food will always taste bland to foul without them, we will suffer from "lifestyle" disorders, and nature will keep dying, until they are returned.

[throw156754228]

The OP's article says Cadmium is not well absorbed from the gut. So even less reason to be concerned.

[mixmastamyk]

It wasn’t the only study, was it?

[enraged_camel]

You're asking people here to put their faith in a comment by some rando (i.e. you) over a well-reputed publication that millions of people have been relying on for decades. I think most will balk at the idea, and I'm one of them. No offense.

[lr4444lr]

Flaxseeds as well. ConsumerLabs carefully documents the cadmium concentration of common brands[0], and many are unsafe.

Flax is such an efficient bio-concentrator of cadmium in fact, that a municipality in PA considered sowing a field of it to remediate a polluted former industrial site. (No clue how they would have harvested and disposed of the tainted flax.)

[0] https://www.consumerlab.com/reviews/flaxseed-whole-ground-an... (may require membership to read).

[stephen_g]

They could potentially do pyrolysis of the biomass (after harvest) and then extract the heavy metals from the resulting char.

e.g. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09619...

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09213...

[magicalhippo]

> No clue how they would have harvested and disposed of the tainted flax.

Sounds like a good basis for a NileRed[1] episode, say making paint[2] from flax seeds.

[1]: https://nile.red/

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_pigments#Cadmium_red

[bregma]

> No clue how they would have harvested and disposed of the tainted flax.

It's flax. Harvest it before it goes to seed, ret it, break it, scutch it, spin it, weave it, make it into expensive garments. Unless you eat your shirt it's going to be perfectly safe.

[lazide]

Probably burned it - hence releasing it all into the air. But hey, out of sight, out of mind?

[perihelions]

Discussed on HN here (and a few other threads if one's motivated to search):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38038465 ("A third of chocolate products are high in heavy metals (consumerreports.org)"; 201 comments)

[fortran77]

Maybe it's the "Cad" in Cadburry?!

[lostlogin]

I know it varies region to region, but here in New Zealand, Cadbury is probably the worst chocolate you can buy.

[Bluestein]

I for one like your pun.-

PS. Regarding your username, fan of Fortran 75 meself :)

[nielsbot]

Although, I note (FTA): "Fortunately, cadmium is not well absorbed from the gut,"

So maybe there's hope...

[Bluestein]

> found cadmium at unsafe levels in many dark chocolate brands:

That's just bonkers.-

PS. Lead too, apparently ...

[MattGaiser]

Chocolate production is a mess of child labour, toxins, violence, and poverty.