Chocolate With the Lowest Lead and Cadmium: A Buyer’s Guide

Divine 70%, Sam’s Choice 85%, Ghirardelli 86%, and Taza 70% are among the dark chocolate bars tested below California’s lead and cadmium thresholds.

For the full breakdown, see our best Dark Chocolate Without Lead and Cadmium guide.

The cocoa percentage printed on a wrapper tells you how dark a bar is, not how much lead and cadmium it carries. Testing keeps finding measurable amounts of both metals in chocolate at every price point, and no federal rule sets a chocolate-specific limit, so the comparisons here lean on California’s Proposition 65 maximum allowable dose levels: 0.5 micrograms per day for lead and 4.1 micrograms per day for cadmium.

Both numbers are daily limits, not per-serving caps, so a one-ounce serving that stays under them is the practical target — and a short list of widely sold bars clears it.

Which Chocolate Bars Tested Lowest For Lead And Cadmium?

Divine 70% Deliciously Smooth Dark Chocolate and Sam’s Choice Dark Chocolate 85% Cocoa both came in below the thresholds for lead and cadmium in a one-ounce serving, and several other high-cocoa bars landed among the lower-metal picks.

The results come from more than one round of testing. One round covered 48 chocolate products across seven categories. A separate Consumer Reports test looked at 28 dark chocolate bars, and Reuters reported that 23 of them exceeded the Proposition 65 levels for lead or cadmium, with five bars over both.

Dark chocolate as a category runs high, so the table below holds the exceptions. Ghirardelli’s Twilight Delight also tested in the lower range.