3 ms·

I've heard that mass-produced chocolate tends to source cocoa from the Ivory Coast, which has an alarming amount of heavy metals in their soil. This is just hea

I've heard that mass-produced chocolate tends to source cocoa from the Ivory Coast, which has an alarming amount of heavy metals in their soil. This is just hearsay though, I don't have any specific sources that compare between Africa and South America. https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Sediment-trace-metal-contamination-in-the-Ivory-Kouadio-Trefry/aa23711196bb9efc427020dbb244f909365a9216 https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Sediment-trace-metal-c...

defrost 3y ago
> I don't have any specific sources that compare between Africa and South America. I do, but they'll kill me (figuratively) if I publish them. Which highlights the issue of dark | private data. There's the public USGS National Geochemical Database: Soil for central north america: https://mrdata.usgs.gov/ngdb/soil/ https://mrdata.usgs.gov/ngdb/soil/ There's a Geochemical Atlas of Europe: http://weppi.gtk.fi/publ/foregsatlas/ http://weppi.gtk.fi/publ/foregsatlas/ and a "work in progress" Global Geochemical Baselines database under development that will reference the available glonal surveys in the public domain, buuuut ... If you want solid usable data from across the globe you probably want to access the pooled transnational mega mining companies database of surface geochemical results, back in 2008 the <redacted> companies portion was some 16 TB of raw sample results from every conutry and territories across the globe. Not complete of course, but once you mosaic that with other collections of a similar size .. that's something pretty neat.
- happytiger 3y ago
  I should have known, but didn’t, that international soil databases of this size existed in private hands. I’ve only seen the USDA surveys. Kind of mind blowing.
gnicholas 3y ago
from TFA: > High cadmium levels are almost exclusively found in cacao beans grown in South America, with beans grown in West Africa showing little contamination.
- richbell 3y ago
  Yes, the cadmium is from volcanic soil. That's not the only heavy metal.

defrost 3y ago

> I don't have any specific sources that compare between Africa and South America. I do, but they'll kill me (figuratively) if I publish them. Which highlights the issue of dark | private data. There's the public USGS National Geochemical Database: Soil for central north america: https://mrdata.usgs.gov/ngdb/soil/ https://mrdata.usgs.gov/ngdb/soil/ There's a Geochemical Atlas of Europe: http://weppi.gtk.fi/publ/foregsatlas/ http://weppi.gtk.fi/publ/foregsatlas/ and a "work in progress" Global Geochemical Baselines database under development that will reference the available glonal surveys in the public domain, buuuut ... If you want solid usable data from across the globe you probably want to access the pooled transnational mega mining companies database of surface geochemical results, back in 2008 the <redacted> companies portion was some 16 TB of raw sample results from every conutry and territories across the globe. Not complete of course, but once you mosaic that with other collections of a similar size .. that's something pretty neat.

happytiger 3y ago
I should have known, but didn’t, that international soil databases of this size existed in private hands. I’ve only seen the USDA surveys. Kind of mind blowing.

gnicholas 3y ago

from TFA: > High cadmium levels are almost exclusively found in cacao beans grown in South America, with beans grown in West Africa showing little contamination.

richbell 3y ago
Yes, the cadmium is from volcanic soil. That's not the only heavy metal.