Bitter Truths About Chocolate - No 1

While we'd like to continue to believe that chocolate comes from a purple garbed man in a whimsical factory, the real chocolate world is far darker and far harder than we ever would have thought.

Though the general disregard for children is about the same.

You know already that lead is bad for you. This is why we have such a thing as "unleaded" gasoline, and in general don't allow lead near anything you're about to breathe or eat. So what does this have to do with chocolate?

Well, it just so happens that the shells of cocoa beans, the chief ingredient in chocolate, have an almost supernatural ability to absorb lead from the air. Of course, this is only a big deal if there's a lot of lead in the air, right? Sure, which is why it's unfortunate that Nigeria, where a shitload of our cocoa comes from, still has lead in their gasoline. That's why a Hershey bar tastes so damn good: The secret ingredient is African exhaust.

The average candy bar ranks fourth for highest lead content in a food. Don't panic yet, though; lead occurs naturally in everything, even wholesome vegetables and grains, and while there is no amount of lead that isn't harmful to the human body, a little bit of the stuff in our bloodstream is more or less unavoidable and probably won't do anything bad enough that we'll ever notice.

Infants and children, on the other hand, are basically screwed. Because they're already stupid, kids absorb higher concentrations of lead into their system than the rest of us, just through their day to day activities of eating dirt and inhaling paint chips. Also, they breathe faster than an adult, which further draws in whatever lead happens to be floating around and sends it toward their sensitive little brains. Even before they start wailing on that candy, they have more lead in their bodies than Vito Corleone. Then comes Halloween.

What effect is this heavy metal smorgasbord having on our youth? A study conducted on some not-so-academically-gifted students showed that most of them had high levels of lead in their systems. Now, we know that it comes from a variety of sources, but for the fat kids, it's easier to put two and two together. Unless you don't know what two and two equals, because you just ate a bag of M&M's.

While no specific manufactured chocolate is named, high levels of lead have been discovered in some of them, and by high, we mean damned close to the limit allowed by international standards. Just from chocolate powder alone, one study found an American kid might get anywhere from three to 12 percent of their tolerable weekly intake of lead in one serving.

Now combine this with all the other exposure to lead children could be getting and it isn't difficult to notice the brain busting potential here.