I’ll add a few extra tips - dietary calcium decreases lead absorption. Adding fiber, lower dietary fat intake, and a bit of dietary iron (if deficient) may help too - but hard to say if simply not being on an empty stomach is part of it. Cacao nibs likely have less lead than powder. If you want to be extra cautious about the potential of inter-batch variability and still have some cacao - just take it in a very small serving size. I’ll also add supplements can have plenty of heavy metals including lead.
Just for an abundance of caution, I drink 2-3 cups of green tea and one cup of coffee in the morning with foods that might have lead.
FWIW: If the risk was great, I would be seriously impaired by this time. I come from an era where lead paint was the most commonly used white paint. To this day I remember sinking my teeth into the window ledges to leave tooth imprints. As a poor teenager, I used to make my own fishing weights from casting scrap lead which was commonly available. As an adult, I worked in laboratories where lead bricks used as radiation shielding was in abundance. I was also heavily exposed to asbestos as a child and an adult. In my high school chemistry class, they were still having us heat mercury iodide inside test tubes over bunsen burners and watch as the beautiful vapors condensed to a mirror finish on the test tube walls. We also discussed the smell of the fumes. We used to use mercury metal to polish pennies to look like silver. As for cadmium, I guess I have been exposed to it through the tons of chocolate I have consumed throughout my life.
I do not doubt the dangers, but I think they have been seriously overstated.
Most people of my generation have been seriously exposed to lead and asbestos at home and at school.
The absolute vs relative risk is always to be considered.
I for one, am not, at this late date, planning to change the brands or the amount of chocolate I eat.
I suppose it depends on the risk that matters to you and how much risk tolerance you prefer. But the levels as defined by the CDC have kept dropping as they found newer issues and still linked mortality with lead as they dropped the limits. For children, it’s definitely a non-negotiable.
The case for chronic blood lead levels >5 mcg/dL for >1 yr is well-documented and there is significantly increased risks of all-cause mortality (RR 1.59, 95% CI 1.28-1.98) at >10 mcg from the best US longitudinal studies.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1626441
Even 2-5 mcg shows increased mortality. It’s pretty clear to me it’s a tradeoff that is fairly easily preventable in my case. In a sense, interventions to reduce lead an easy long-term proven “nootropic” to avoid losing a few IQ points as well. Not just health.
“increased risks of all-cause mortality (RR 1.59, 95% CI 1.28-1.98) at >10 mcg from the best US longitudinal studies.”
But, what is the absolute risk?
As I said it’s a risk. But many articles and studies are fond of stating relative risk. i.e. Your risk of dud duh duh is increased by 100% when the actual risk is only increased from one in two thousand to one in one thousand.
So, again what is the absolute risk?
“Americans consume 2.8 billion pounds of chocolate each year, or over 11 pounds per person.” The Swiss consume ~20 lbs a year, and yet they are considered a healthy society.
So, I think the danger of contaminates in chocolate is overstated as and, as often in the case when “relative” results are gleaned from studies, used as clickbait headlines
“Your Chocolate May Be Killing You”. Maybe so, but more likely from overconsumption than contaminants.
What’s the risk of all-cause mortality?
It’s ~1% per year on average (generally higher the older one goes) and likely close to if not equal to 100% over a lifetime (perhaps I’ll revise this probability at some point with new information).
It obviously depends on where you are and what your risk tolerance is. You can check actuary tables for mortality if you wish to get an idea, but it can be significant AR depending on individuals. It’s a pretty well defined risk hence I mentioned all cause mortality specifically. So for me, the absolute risk reduction over a lifetime is absolutely significant 
For a child, it clearly is even more so.
Cocoa powders and nibs – 25 mg/g in Navitas Organic Cacao Powder (which was a bit higher than in Navitas’ nibs) to as little
as 1.9 mg/g in Hershey’s Cocoa Special Dark 100% Cocoa.
too bad it barely has any flavanols. also it has the highest acrylamide (interestingly, dutched chocolate has lower acrylamide)
the report recommends “Good &
Gather (Target) Unsweetened Cocoa Powder (100% Cocoa Powder)” [out of stock rn]
also montezuma (wrapped in wax rather than plastics - seeing this ALONE made it worth buying once). monetzuma also is not sweetened, which is a good thing b/c that makes you spread out your consumption rather than eat all of it at once (foods as nutritionally dense as this should not taste infinitely good). Supposedly SOME kinds of cacao can help one reduce weight. I purchased monetzuma last week but it’s expensive so I bought Ghirardelli unsweetened this week.
Ghirardelli consistently has low lead/cadmium as shown on Toxic Chocolate — As You Sow . After doing ENOUGH research I finally ended up purchasing this b/c I still want something that feels like food. They have one that is pure chocolate and nothing else (not even stevia).
Calories
Calories in cocoa and dark chocolate products come mainly from their cocoa butter (9 Calories per gram) and added sugars
(4 Calories per gram). As cocoa supplements typically contain little to no sugar and minimal cocoa butter, they provide few
calories. Similarly, unsweetened cocoa powders contain no sugar and generally little cocoa butter, so a tablespoon (about 5
grams) typically provides only 10 to 20 Calories. Cocoa nibs naturally contain cocoa butter, so a 3-tablespoon serving (15
grams) may provide about 7 grams of fat and 150 Calories. Dark chocolate typically includes the most cocoa butter and sugar,
so that a 40-gram serving will provide around 250 Calories – or about 200 Calories if not sweetened with sugar.
[this actually is an argument for cocoa powder over cacao nibs]
[god i finally read over the entire doc today]. Amazon.com is so tempting b/c it’s so cheap but it’s also so untested 
Roasted cocoa powder actually has less than average raw cacao nibs product. I suspect your suggestion could be roasted, since it doesn’t claim to be raw.
I know this may shock you, but I eat chocolate because I like it not because it is healthy.
And, I only eat what I like. Excuse me, but I am not going to be looking into every ingredient. Lindt, Toblerone, and Godiva are some of my favorite brands and I don’t care if they are healthy or not.
Yeah, it excels in terms of cocoanols/$ and seems likely to be very low in heavy metals (esp given the low doses used), but it’s not going to fill you up or feel like food. Maybe it might feel like food a little, but I certainly eat to kill cravings, and tasteless chocolate helps way more with this than nuts do
Well, firstly, we should probably try and reduce the amount of lead/cadmium in our food. That’s completely uncontroversial. We’ve largely eliminated them from most areas of our life, they are pretty universal toxin that causes serious problems for health, and if nothing else this new report shows that it’s possible for chocolate bars to have fewer heavy metals. Remember, 5/28 bars had lower levels than even the very low Californian threshold!
That being said, I’m not too worried about eating dark chocolate based on these figures. It’s true that there’s a plausibly elevated risk at the population level, but that’s not really meaningful to the individual. If you’re looking at the entire population of the United States, then very tiny risks add up to quite a few people who face issues, but the levels of lead and cadmium in these chocolate bars are incredibly low so they’ll barely be a blip on the radar to most individuals.
If you’re looking to avoid heavy metals, there are some lower choices in the Consumer Reports document, but from my perspective I’m not all that worried. Unless you’re eating several bars of dark chocolate a day, the impact to your health is likely to be extremely small.
I have just started eating unsweetened baking chocolate, 100% cacao. It is an acquired taste, like black coffee, no sugar. But it has a mild sweetness as it melts in your mouth.
Perhaps something we can easily add to our coffee in the morning with minimal taste impact?
From what I’ve read, the issue with baking chocolate is that it is often more heavily dutched (dutching process), which can lower the quantity of beneficial compounds.
I use NOW organic cocoa powder and add it to my oatmeal when I eat it for breakfast. It enhances the flavour of the oatmeal and is a giant win-win.
Ive been doing this for years. Oatmeal with cacao powder and goji berries 
super tasty. def a win win
Ghirardelli says non-alkalized. This is just my snack. I also take one cup of organic unsweetened cacao, mixed with matcha powder mixed in.
The article below lists what the author considers good brands.
Coincidentally, this is also one of the brands lowest in lead and cadmium…
Anyone tried