Trust Issues with Top Google Results
One of the driving motivators for creating this blog was this very example I’m about to delve into. I did a simple Google search and typed in, “best healthy chocolate” and clicked the first result. I landed on a blog post for a website called Everyday Health that recommends 11 “dietitian” approved chocolates. No doubt being the top result on Google, Everyday Health is making big bucks on affiliate marketing.
To the average consumer, a no-name, faceless dietitian approval is enough to spend your hard earned money thinking you’re getting a good quality product. However, that couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, I rarely see dietitians ever recommending good quality products. Once I see a dietitian’s stamp of approval, I already start raising red flags. Do you believe these dietitians are actually doing the deep dive research into these companies? Checking their sourcing, heavy metal tests, ethical treatment of employees and farmers, and the manufacturing of their product? The answer is an obvious no. The first page of Google is littered with these posts.
Taking a look at Everyday Health’s article, “11 Healthy (and Delicious) Chocolate Bars That Dietitians Eat”, let’s check out some of these recommendations. I want to start with the fact Everyday Health cites the 2022 Consumer Reports’ article about chocolates with high lead and cadmium, and then go straight into offering you chocolate with high lead and cadmium from that very article (they know no one click it).
Let’s dive into this list!
Up First, Pascha Chocolate
According to that very Consumer Reports article Everyday Health are linking you to, Pascha Chocolate was one of the highest chocolates in cadmium.
Pascha Chocolate has good intentions as they were founded on the basis of being an allergen-free chocolate. For all intents and purposes, they achieve this. The owner, Simon Lestor, worked for Cadbury and transitioned into making his own chocolate company. However, Pascha’s goal isn’t high quality chocolate, it’s allergen-free chocolate. This means sourcing, metal testing, and stakeholder empowerment are lower priorities in terms of branding and operations. Pascha isn’t a bad company, however, they just wouldn’t be my top choice for “healthy” chocolate.
Theo Chocolate Made the List?
Look no further than number three on the list, Theo Chocolate; a famously low quality brand with no effort to manufacture a quality product. As You Sow can quickly show you that Theo Chocolate should be avoided due to toxic levels of cadmium.
I feel like this is proof enough to debunk Everyday Health’s article, but let’s continue digging deeper. Not only does Theo produce low quality chocolate, they are heavily anti-consumer and anti-employee.
Theo Chocolate hired a union busting consulting firm to keep wages and working conditions as low as possible. If they treat their local citizens that poorly, imagine how poorly farmers and foreign stakeholders are treated. Remember that most certifications are buzzwords and usually have minimal requirements. https://www.teamsters117.org/theo_chocolates_union_busting_exposed
And if all of that wasn’t enough, Theo Chocolate was recently (2023) bought out by the American Licorice Company, a company that sells almost exclusively carcinogenic, highly toxic candies. There isn’t a single timeline where Theo Chocolate would ever make it to a “healthy” chocolate list, and in the impossible event they did, their ethics and morals are non-existent and should be avoided at all costs.
Hu Chocolate Also Made the List?
Coming in at number ten is none other than Hu Chocolate. Hu Chocolate has done a great job marketing itself as a healthy, buzzword filled chocolate bar, but in reality it’s nothing more than a hyper for-profit, low quality chocolate company owned by the evil Mondelēz International conglomerate.
I already have a long winded write up on Hu Chocolate over here, so I’ll keep it brief. Hu Chocolate started as a venture capital project with the intent to manufacture low quality chocolate at a high price, hopping on the paleo trend of the 2010’s. As a result, they are high in metals, source low quality chocolate, and invest more in their marketing than their product. Any list that contains Hu Chocolate immediately loses any credibility.
Any Good Chocolates on the List?
There are some good chocolate companies on this list by Everyday Health. Valrhona makes great chocolate and is low in metal contamination. I recommend them in my post about best cacao powders to buy over here. Mast Chocolate is another company on the list that is highly recommended in flavor and quality, as is Taza Chocolate that’s located right here in Boston.
You should always be skeptical of these lists that offer no reasoning as to why they rank companies as highly as they do. This is only the first Google search result that has no doubt mislead hundreds of thousands of people. Scrolling down the search results does not improve the quality of results. That’s why I am doing the deep dives for you, so you can be better informed of what goes into your body and where you money goes.