this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2025
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Why US chocolate tastes weird to the rest of the world (www.dw.com)
submitted 1 day ago by Davriellelouna@lemmy.world to c/buyeuropean@feddit.uk
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[โ€“] growsomethinggood@reddthat.com 28 points 1 day ago (5 children)

Not to defend the US on pretty much anything, but there's basically tiers of chocolate. Low quality mass produced chocolate (hershey's, kit kat, etc) is almost always waxy, overly sweet, and sometimes has that weird butyric acid additive. Mid tier is like your Ghirardelli: popular nationally but more expensive than your low tier chocolate, still often quite sweet but you can at least get dark chocolate. High tier is usually regional artisan chocolate. I like Theo in the PNW but I think that's going national lately.

All of this is NOT a recommendation to buy these chocolates of course. Go get Tony's Chocolonely if you can find it.

[โ€“] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I was all about Tony's until it came out it's high in lead and cadmium. Ghirardelli is the only easy to buy brand for me that isn't high in lead or cadmium.

[โ€“] UrbonMaximus@feddit.uk 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

There's an update that came out at the start of this year. You can find it here.

Long story short - it's as safe as any other dark chocolate on the market.

[โ€“] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

It's not as safe as other chocolates that have significantly less lead and cadmium. Furthermore, in some cases the contamination comes from the processing machinery, not the soil, so it completely under their control to immediately eliminate it. Yet they didn't say they planned to address the problem. They could also begin the process of eliminating cadmium by replanting on uncontaminated soil.

[โ€“] rehydrate5503@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Do you have a source for this?

[โ€“] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

https://www.consumerreports.org/health/food-safety/lead-and-cadmium-in-dark-chocolate-a8480295550/

Annoyingly, instead of saying they were going to address the problem, Tony's response was "it's in the soil" and CR used "California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA)" standards. Which ignores that their chocolate is still higher in lead than some other brands.

https://tonyschocolonely.com/blogs/other/a-small-update-on-health-and-safety-and-heavy-metals

[โ€“] Wrufieotnak@feddit.org 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

But what do you want them to do? It is literally in the soil and cocoa plants are accumulators for heavy metals.

Furthermore they aim for only working with slave free cocoa plantations. So they are limited in who they can buy from. Those two things together probably don't leave a lot of possible sources of cocoa.

[โ€“] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Apples and rice in the US were found to be contaminated with arsenic from the soil. Farms are moved, soil is treated, processing is changed.

Here what can be done for Chocolate:

https://www.asyousow.org/blog/2022/8/17/new-report-explains-simple-safe-and-low-cost-solutions-to-reduce-levels-of-lead-and-cadmium-in-chocolate

Some brands of chocolate do not have high lead. It's not a necessary part of chocolate production.

[โ€“] Wrufieotnak@feddit.org 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Thanks for that link, didn't know that lead is mostly from human sources.

[โ€“] lunarul@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

But the common "cheap" chocolate like Hersheys is compared to common similarly priced chocolate in Europe. You can find much cheaper chocolate in Europe that is just as bad or worse than Hersheys, but you expect it for that price.

[โ€“] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 2 points 1 day ago

tony doesnt have super dark chocolate though.

[โ€“] lost@lemmy.wtf 1 points 1 day ago

I'm really not impressed by Tony's chocolate: it's too sweet and not dark enough. I'm used to 80%+ and I always look for the lowest sugar content option.