Halloween Hierarchy the best and the worst candy picks

Last Sunday, after we had dinner, I left my football-watching family and headed out. My destination? Duane Reade. Once there I made myself comfortable in the candy aisle and went to work.  I had a candy segment the next morning and even amongst the junk I was trying to sort out the Halloween hierarchy.

I texted Carolyn, if you can't reach me here's where I am

First, I looked at sugar:

Note: serving sizes vary so before I could compare candy, I need to do some advanced math and look at comparable serving sizes (1 bar for all chocolate or the equivalent for gummy stuff), you know “apples to apples” or in this case Airheads to Airheads.

The sugar “stars” or best of the bunch were Twizzlers, Dark Chocolate Kisses, Mounds and Nestle crunch.

All of these had less than 8 grams (or 2 teaspoons) of sugar

The scariest sugar?

Candy corn by far, followed by Reeses, Skittles and 100 Grand.

I also glanced at calories where Twizzlers led the the way again with York Peppermint Patty, Airheads and Sour Patch Kids also low in calories.

This is just another instance where calories don’t tell the full story. I’d suggest Reeses and 100 Grand (highest in calories) over the low calories picks simply because I think the food dyes are the worst of the worst. The three most widely used dyes in the US require a warning label by the EU. Those are red 40, yellow 5 and yellow 6.  As if being derived from petroleum wasn’t bad enough, the dyes are responsible for behavior issues in children and headaches for all of us. Ingredients matter, even with candy.

The good news is that Halloween is one day and most of the candy is mini (cannot endorse the term “fun size”).  At the end of the day, enjoy your favorites if you so choose and most importantly be sure the candy isn’t hanging around in November. Kids will forget about it, adults…not so much.
What's your favorite Halloween candy? Will you have it this year?