Chocoholics take note: a leading French consumer group has named its “best dark chocolate” – with a supermarket favourite scoring highest on quality, taste, and texture.
Que Choisir Ensemble (formerly UFC-Que Choisir) has published the results of its latest study on dark chocolate, the Dossier Chocolat Noir, after analysing 23 large bars (100g) that are widely available in supermarkets and organic food shops.
The tablets and brands compared include:
Nestlé, les Recettes de l’atelier Juste 3 Ingrédients, 70% Cacao
Artisans du Monde Chocolat Noir, 58% Cacao
Kaoka Noir 70% Cacao
Carré Suisse Chocolat Extra Noir 70%
Naturalia Chocolat Noir dégustation 71% cacao
Cote d’or 70% Noir Extra
Also included were popular choices from some of France’s major supermarkets, including:
Carrefour Sélection Noir 72% cacao
Fin Carré (Lidl) Noir Intense 74% cacao
U Chocolat noir 72% de cacao
Auchan 70% noir
Marque repere Equador (E.Leclerc) Noir extra 72% cacao
Well-known winner
The perhaps-unexpected winner was a well-known classic: the Lindt Excellence 70%.
The winner overall was the well-known Lindt Excellence 70% cocoa dark chocolate barZikG/Shutterstock
This bar is neither organic nor marketed as ‘fairtrade’, but topped the rankings with a score of 16.1 out of 20.
It scored well on taste and texture, and was also considered to be of good quality, with no ingredients identified as problematic or too-high in contaminants such as heavy metals.
Its affordable price, at around €2.60 per bar, also worked in its favour.
Contaminant concerns
The study looked not only at taste, texture, and price, but also considered the quality of ingredients, and the presence of possible contaminants including pesticides and heavy metals.
This caused some products that might appear ‘better’ at a glance, to score lower than might be expected.
For example, some bars that come from fairtrade production, or whose cocoa beans are organic, were found to be more affected by contaminants such as the heavy metal cadmium, when compared to products that did not have these same claims.
This is because many come from Latin American countries - such as Peru, Ecuador, or Colombia - where polluted soils can contain higher levels of heavy metals.
Cadmium content
It comes as the presence of cadmium and other heavy metals has become more of a concern to authorities, particularly as dark chocolate has historically been seen as a ‘healthier’ option than other chocolates due to its normally-high antioxidant and magnesium content, and lower levels of sugar.
Yet, Que Choisir Ensemble has said that cadmium “is a carcinogenic heavy metal, toxic to the kidneys and bones, and suspected of causing neurological developmental disorders if the foetus is exposed [to too much]”.
The group has published its own video on cadmium (shown below), and how much chocolate should be consumed in light of the heavy metal. (To play the video in English, hover over and hit Settings > Audio track > English (US). Or to put on subtitles, hit Settings > Subtitles/CC > Auto-translate > English.)
French food and environment agency ANSES states that exposure to cadmium should not exceed 21 µg (microgram) per day for adults and 7 µg for children.
This equates to a moderate consumption of chocolate, and certainly no more than one to two squares of dark chocolate (with potentially-high levels of cadmium) per day.
