We all are found of chocolates. It is so indulging and delicious that one can’t resist it. It may seem too good to be true, but take one bite of decadent delight Choco bar and you’ll be convinced this energy-packed, nutritious chocolate bar is for real! That’s why chocolate is excessively used in gifting and there are a large number of chocolate hamper available in the markets. There are also a large number of health benefits of the chocolate like it is good for heart health, increase HDL cholesterol, obesity , reduce obesity etc. but there is a new worrying research done on chocolate have found that many of the chocolate products sold in Brazil contain worrying amounts of both lead and cadmium.

The research is published in the American Chemical Society’s (ACS) Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, the sample of the research is 30 chocolate brands including milk, dark, white and semi-sweet chocolate sold mainly in Brazil but they are also widely available I different counties of the world too. And it is found that both the metals i.e. lead and cadmium are found in it. These two have the potency to cause severe damage to brain and cause other health problems particularly in children.

The main culprit of the high amount is the tainted soil by which they enter the coca bean seeds. The Brazilian government has established the limit for the presence of these two metals in the chocolates for the safety and it is according to the recommended amount set by U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) but the amount found in these chocolates is higher than the recommended limit. The European Union and the World Health Organization also make test and they also found the levels are high.

The test resulted in a conclusion that even a small child who is having a child weighing about 33 pounds who eats only one-third of an ounce of chocolate per day, or less than one-quarter of a standard-sized chocolate bar, will consume about 20 percent of the E.U.-suggested maximum intake in a week

Although it is considered to consume more dark chocolate as it has high content to cocoa and less  sugar, milk and butter so it will be more beneficial for the health but when tested for the content of lead and cadmium the results were totally different . The Brazilian dark chocolate has the highest percentage of both of the metal found. And the Brazilian milk and white chocolate has the fewer amounts as a matter of fact it also contain other ingredients like milk and butter other than cocoa. These results place us on a very confusing condition. What to eat and what not. It is better to do a brain damage or to have diabetes and weight gain? Of course both are not acceptable. Moreover leaving chocolates altogether is also not possible for us.

Thus the best step to take is that the companies should refine the chocolate liquor which is made from cocoa beans before using it in making chocolate bars and other chocolate products. It is crucially important that the companies take sever actions and bring the amount of these two minerals to the recommended level.