Parade: Ryan Marino, associate professor of emergency medicine at the School of Medicine, explained how any type of chocolate could potentially contain heavy metals. “While the most likely source for heavy metals in chocolate products would be from the cacao plant itself (as these metals come from our environment), testing has shown that products can have higher or lower amounts of metals than would be expected based on their cocoa percentage alone, which is also consistent with the fact that metal concentrations in plant products can vary for many reasons (e.g. geographical location, manufacturing facilities and processes, etc.),” he said.
