Does All Cocoa Contain Lead and Cadmium? List of Heavy Metal Tested Cocoa Powder

In recent years, many people have been looking to both dark chocolate and high flavanol and raw cacao as better alternatives to regular commercial chocolate. Their antioxidant potency and ability to boost heart and brain health while also being an effective post-workout supplement seems to make them a no-brainer when searching for healthier foods. One of the chief scares with products that contain cocoa and cacao in high concentrations, however, comes with the heavy metals (such as lead and cadmium) they are said to contain.

As the founder of Vital Purple, this is my most frequent asked question of all time. What is the heavy metal content of our high flavanol cacao powder and what are the flavanol levels. It's a test of safety and efficacy, that's what it comes down to. 

So does all cocoa contain lead and cadmium? In short, yes all cocoa will contain trace amounts of the heavy metals due to absorption from the soil when the crop is grown. Does that mean cacao is unsafe? No! It's the responsibility of cacao brands to assure they have safe levels. 

With brands that undergo safety testing, however, you’d have to consume well over the recommended amount over a long period of time for those levels to become unsafe. Like with other similar scares, trusted brands and distributors will almost always be aware of these concerns and be taking steps to address them. 

It must be a pain for people to look around for companies that are responsible enough to actually test and be transparent about those tests... so we made a list of heavy metal tested cocoa powder. 

But that still begs the question–which high flavanol cacao brands can you trust to have thoroughly tested their product for heavy metals, and how do you know? Read on for a more in-depth look at heavy metals in cocoa and cacao:

The gold standard for a cacao brand’s transparency in heavy metal testing should ideally be their willingness to publish their test results directly to their website, and this is precisely what Vital Purple does. Rather than shy away from the fact that 100% cacao naturally contains trace amounts of these chemicals, Vital Purple tells you exactly how much is in theirs, and proves this amount to be safe per federal guidelines. Along with multiple articles highlighting and putting these results into context, Vital Purple provides the clarity you should demand from anything you put in your body.

Cadmium: 0.623 mg/kg
Lead: < 0.01 mg/kg
Mercury: < 0.01 mg/kg
Arsenic: < 0.01 mg/kg

CocoaVia, owned by the Mars corporation, is another brand that lists specific results for their product’s cadmium levels in the FAQ on their website. These results are third-party verified by ConsumerLab, with CocoaVia citing a proprietary process that doesn’t concentrate any heavy metals to explain the relatively low cadmium content you can see. This, however, is likely due to the fact that they use an extract rather than a whole bean powder for their product, so keep in mind you’d be sacrificing some of the plant’s vital nutrient content by going with them.

Cadmium: < 0.01 mg/kg
Lead: Not Published
Mercury: Not Published
Arsenic: Not Published

You can also find various testing results, including those for lead, cadmium, and other heavy metals, on the site for Bryan Johnson’s cocoa powder. The levels shown there are higher, though not significantly higher in most categories, than other leading brands.

Cadmium: 0.814 mg/kg
Lead: 0.068 mg/kg
Mercury: 0.052 mg/kg
Arsenic: 0.049 mg/kg

Ora Cacao is another brand that does a very good job making sure to be transparent about their product’s heavy metal content, showing that these levels are much better than other lower-end brands and also taking the time to put these numbers into context. They, like Vital Purple, explain that trace metals are inherent to all cacao and demonstrate they aren’t exposing consumers to anything more than safe, recommended daily amounts. 

Cadmium: ~ 0.4 mg/kg
Lead: < 0.01 mg/kg
Mercury: "Non-Detectable"
Arsenic: "Non-Detectable"

While Origen Cacao does include heavy metal testing as part of their site’s FAQ, they only do so to state that their product is third-party tested and within safe levels, and do not list any specific results or put these results into context for their consumers. A step in the right direction, but clearly not ideal when compared to the more transparent brands we’ve already seen.

Cadmium: Not Published
Lead: Not Published
Mercury: Not Published
Arsenic: Not Published

In an article on their website, Keith’s Cacao also posts and discusses their heavy metal testing results. Though other brands are more thorough with the data they show to consumers, the levels listed are quite good, and they do a good job of explaining them in the article.

Cadmium: 0.157 mg/kg
Lead: "Non-Detectable"
Mercury: Not Published
Arsenic: Not Published

OhmYes is transparent about their heavy metal content and posts the full results to their website, though without the accompanying article or larger discussion we have already seen from the best brands. Their levels are also a bit consistently higher than other listed brands.

Cadmium: 1.006 mg/kg
Lead: 0.093 mg/kg
Mercury: Not Published
Arsenic: 0.042 mg/kg

Cacao Adventures comes out as one of the most thorough and transparent cacao brands thus far, posting their results both broken down by region of sourcing and compared directly with the relevant FDA and state-level guidelines. If verifiable, thorough, and well-explained test results are among your chief concerns when selecting a cacao brand, it’s ones like Cacao Adventures and Vital Purple that you should be looking at.

Cadmium: 0.02 mg/kg
Lead: < 0.01 mg/kg
Mercury: Not Published
Arsenic: < 0.01 mg/kg

Soul Lift Cacao has an article in their blog that does a good job of contextualizing the scare surrounding heavy metals in cacao, comparing it to far greater recent issues with lead in food products and showing the majority of ceremonial cacao to be fully safe on this front. They also post the results for each of their cacao varieties there, along with the relevant FDA and EU guidelines for comparison.

Cadmium: 0.717 mg/kg
Lead: 0.07 mg/kg
Mercury: Not Published
Arsenic: Not Published

As you can see, many organic cocoa powder and raw cacao powder brands on the market strive for a level of transparency regarding their product’s natural heavy metal cocoa powder content, with some even being quite thorough in doing so, so why choose Vital Purple? 

Well.... Who posts their updated heavy metal cocoa powder results on their home page?

Who tests almost every single batch of cacao, while keeping their sourcing farms consistent? A lot of companies simply buy cocoa and do marketing. We preserve it's cocoa flavanols better than anyone else. 

A good question to ask your favorite high flavanol cocoa brand is... how often do they test? The results can be inconsistent. 

Simply put, Vital Purple is the world’s first and only pure, raw, ceremonial cacao made with a focus on preserving the plant’s natural purple hue. If you want a cacao powder that keeps all the best nutrients of this truly incredible food, one where you know exactly what you’re eating and mixing into your drinks, Vital Purple is the cacao for you.

Writer / Researcher: Trey Norbey