When I was in 8th grade, we had to sell chocolate bars for a fundraiser. You know the kind – “World’s Finest” chocolate or something, crappy chocolate in nondescript wrappers that you only ever see when a school needs money. We had a golden retriever, and she got into the stash of chocolate, and ate about 30 bars. I was terrified, because I’d always heard that chocolate was poison to dogs, but she never even got sick.
After Niles told me that some customer claimed to have gotten chocolate poisoning, I spent some time researching chocolate poisoning. Turns out it’s an alkaloid called theobromine that causes the toxicity, and theobromine is present in much larger amounts in dark chocolate, lower amounts in milk chocolate, and even lower amounts the more the chocolate is processed. My conclusion is that “World’s Finest” chocolate bars contain little to no actual chocolate in them, otherwise our poor dog would have at least gotten sick.
Still, a person would have to eat SO MUCH chocolate to get theobromine poisoning. If the customer’s story was true, I’m a little impressed.