Death by Chocolate

Death by Chocolate?

If it’s past 8pm and there’s chocolate in the pantry I eat it. Sometimes I buy extra for my wife but I usually eat that too. She has more will power than I do. She is also lovely and often buys it for me. I’m pleased to report we have now reached a happy equilibrium, she buys, I eat, no chocolate ever lives to meet its expiry, a crime worth it’s weight in chocolate. But what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger right? And that made me wonder, how much chocolate would it take to kill me? And no I’m not talking about slow death by expanding waistlines/ eat in moderation blah blah blah. I’m talking, an Agatha Christie special, acute death by chocolate!

I thought I’d start this journey by reviewing the case studies, has anyone actually died from eating chocolate? Well actually yes, just this year, three people in the UK died from eating chocolate mousse contaminated with listeria. Am sure with all the funding cuts to the FDA there’s probably tonnes of Americans dying of listeria infected chocolate but we don’t know about it because nobody’s monitoring it (it’s not a problem if you don’t know about it). Anyway, I don’t think we can blame chocolate for those deaths. Maybe Trump though.

I also thought that if Elvis could choke to death on a peanut butter, jelly and bacon sandwich (the Fool’s Gold Loaf), then there’s probably a good chance that someone has choked to death on a chocolate bar. Sadly, I could find no evidence that either of these were true. Elvis died of boring old heart failure. Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain’t goin’ away. And neither is chocolate, or is it? The only other chocolate related death I could find was an incident in New Jersey in 2009 when a worker fell into a chocolate vat. Awful, but again, don’t think we can blame chocolate for that.

So anyway, yes I am interested in the toxic dose of chocolate but that doesn’t mean it’s poisonous. It’s the dose that makes the poison. And chocolate has tonnes of good stuff – antioxidants (flavonoids), Phenylethylamines (the love molecule) and anandamides (a neurotransmitter chill pill). So you can tell your doctor it’s required for brain/heart health and to butt out because it literally makes you feel good (just don’t quote me).

It also contains theobromine and small amounts of caffeine. And apparently sometimes lead and cadmium but lets not go there. Nope, we have to go there. Some chocolate — especially dark — contains trace amounts of lead and cadmium. Not enough to kill you outright, but enough to make you question whether your antioxidant-rich indulgence is secretly moonlighting as a neurotoxic snack. But let’s not dwell because well… chocolate.

Theobromine is a xanthene alkaloid. Where does theobromine act in the body? Terrific question! It blocks adenosine receptors (A1 and A2A). Yes, the very same place as caffeine! Adenosine promotes neuronal inhibition and sleep, so blocking it causes a stimulant effect (and also lowers the seizure threshold).

 (a stimulant, but also something that can cause nausea, tremors and seizures in high doses). Apparently the LD50 of theobromine is 1000mg/kg of body weight, so 70,000mg (70g) in an average person. Milk chocolate contains 205mg/100g of theobromine and cocoa powder contains 1365mg/100g. So you’d have to eat about 34kg of milk chocolate or 5.1kg of baking powder to get into the danger zone. In case you were wondering, that’s 810x42g KitKats or a very awkward call to the poisons centre. The LD50 is the dose that kills 50% of the population, so only half of us would die with that amount of chocolate. (See my post on Why We Aim for Half Dead: The Grim Logic Behind LD₅₀). As a side not, the toxic dose of theobromine in a dog is much much lower because they can’t metabolise it. Hence why we all panic when dogs eat chocolate – it causes vomiting, diarrhoea and sometimes arrythmias and seizures.

So yes, caffeine’s in there too, but unless you’re mainlining espresso-infused KitKats like a Wall Street intern on a deadline, it’s unlikely to be your undoing. You’d need to eat over 700 bars to hit lethal caffeine levels — and by then, your pancreas would have filed for divorce.

But while death by chocolate is practically improbable impossible, death TO chocolate is terrifyingly real. Enter: Cacao Swollen Shoot Virus Disease (CSSVD) — a mouthful of a name for a virus that’s been quietly decimating cacao trees across West Africa. It causes swollen stems, leaf yellowing, and ultimately tree death. Ghana, one of the world’s top producers, has lost tens of thousands of hectares. Combine that with climate change, child labor scandals, and Big Chocolate’s questionable ethics, and suddenly your midnight snack feels like a fragile luxury teetering on the edge of collapse.