Should I Worry About Exposure to Lead in Chocolate While Pregnant?

Hi Emily, my husband just shared this new Consumer Reports article with me about lead and cadmium levels in most brands of dark chocolate. As I eat a lot of dark chocolate, and did while pregnant, I’m now naturally concerned. Would love to get your thoughts on these findings, how to think about the risks, etc. Thanks!
—Ex-Dark-Chocolate Fan?

The end of your framing is exactly right: “How to think about these risks” is the right question.

I have no reason to doubt the Consumer Reports findings. There is some lead and cadmium in chocolate. And we know that lead in particular is not good. You do not need to eat lead and, in an ideal world, it would not be in chocolate.

Lead is a particular concern in kids, and I wrote more here on lead guidelines and impacts. In adults, low-level lead exposure is a less significant concern, just because our brain development is more complete. Still, again, you do not need to eat lead, so it would be better not to.

Having said this: we want to put it in the context of other lead exposures.

First, it is worth noting that over time our exposure to lead has gone way down, with the removal of lead paint and leaded gasoline from production. Second, your primary exposure to lead is probably through water. The EPA sets a lead limit of 15 micrograms per liter on drinking water; most tap water in the U.S. is below this limit. But this can give us some context for the chocolate.

If your water had 10 micrograms per liter of lead, and you drink two liters a day, that is 20 micrograms of exposure. The highest-lead chocolate that Consumer Reports tested had about 1 microgram per ounce. So even if you were eating a reasonable amount of chocolate every day, your water-based exposure would still likely be the more significant.

Of course, a reasonable person might say — look, I don’t need chocolate; why not just avoid lead wherever I can? And I can see this argument (perhaps minus the part about not needing chocolate). But it’s worth noting that there are moderate amounts of lead in many foods, and you just never know. There is no guarantee that you will fully avoid lead if you switch chocolates, or move from chocolate to some other indulgence. At the levels we are talking about here, any effects are likely to be nil. Again, this doesn’t mean lead is good, just that you want to keep this in perspective.