Candy Blog

Many parents have suspected for a long time that candy may contribute to hyperactivity in children. While sugar has been exonerated, it appears that the problem may be with preservatives and artificial colors.

I pulled together a list of candies which parents may want to consider when eliminating those elements from their diet, after all, kids deserve to be, well, kids. This is not a complete list of all natural candies, just a little something for now if you were wondering. I’ll pull something more complete together for Halloween.

Gummis & Fruit Sours
Katjes Tropical Gummis & Yogurt Gums
Jelly Belly All Natural Jelly Beans
St. Claire’s Organic Mints & Tarts
Organic Surf Sweets (Gummis, Fruity Bears & Jelly Beans)
Florida’s Naturals Sour Strings

Hard Candies
College Farm (Lollipops & Hard Candies)
Yummy Earth (Lollipops & Hard Candies)
Pure Fun (Cotton Candy & Hard Candies)

Chocolate
Most chocolate is all natural, except for the artificial flavor vanillin which is present in Hershey’s, Nestle, Mars, Palmer’s, World’s Finest and others. Some candy bars, however, contain additional preservatives such as Sodium Benzoate, TBHQ or BHA and Potassium Sorbate. So read labels carefully. Generally, stay away from colorful candy coatings to reduce the likelihood of running ot problematic chemicals.

Nestle Smarties (from the UK)
Sun Drops
Thompson Organics & All Natural Line
Endangered Species Chocolate
Equal Exchange (Fair Trade & Organic)
Green & Black’s (Fair Trade & Organic)
Guittard
Dagoba
Terra Nostra (Dairy Free “Milk” Chocolate & other organic goodies)
Theo

Licorice
Black Ace Licorice
Panda Bars

Gum & Mints
Glee
Anis de Flavigny
VerMints
St. Claire’s Organic Mints & Tarts

In most cases, I don’t miss the unnatural elements. Yes, the colors might not be as bright, but the flavors are usually the same or better. Without preservatives you have to get fresh candy. But that’s what you wanted anyway, right?

What’s your favorite all natural candy?

Related Candies

1. This Week in Candy - Naturally!
2. Green Halloween Final Thoughts
3. Green Halloween

I’m getting so excited. In a little over a week the All Candy Expo starts, I’ve got my travel plans locked in and my lists of candy companies to visit.

I’ll be posting every day starting next Monday with notes and news.

In the mean time, there are other things to look forward to if you’re in Indiana ... you’re getting a See’s! Okay, it’s just at the Indianapolis Airport, so if you live in Indianapolis, you’ll have to buy a plane ticket, go through security in order to enjoy the deliciousness.

Bunrab has an awesome posting on the new Charles Chocolates cafe & store at their factory in Emeryville, CA.

There’s a lot of talk in the news lately about the new study out of the United Kingdom that links artificial colors and preservatives to hyperactivity. Many parents have noticed this connection and have found that an all natural diet makes a huge difference.

To that end, I’m going to try to list those things more often, or at least post when a product is all natural. In the mean time, it looks like Europe is doing a pretty good job of eliminating artificial colors (Nestle Smarties are the most notable).

In case you didn’t notice, Candy Blog got a little update on the layout over the weekend. I’m still tweaking things a bit (which is why there are two blogrolls at the moment). Hopefully it will end some of the endless scrolling and organize things a little better.

Here’s last week’s candy reviews in review:

Monday: Milk Maid Caramel Candy Corn (3 out of 10)

Tuesday: Caramilk Maple (6 out of 10)

Wednesday: Niederegger Marzipan Orange (8 out of 10)

Thursday: Zip Bomb (4 out of 10)

Friday: Shockers Squeez Lemon & Berry (5 out of 10)

5.2 weekly average ... 40% chocolate content.

Related Candies

1. This Week in Candy - Too Hot
2. This Week in Candy - The Vacation
3. This Week in Candy - A Giant Craving
4. This Week in Candy - Elvis is in the Cupcake!
5. This Week in Candy - The FDA Stuff Continues (as does my obsession with nougat)

I browse eBay a lot, just to see what sort of candy is being sold. It’s a good place to “make a friend” in a particular area who can send you a special candy on a regular basis. Of course a good deal of the candy on eBay is also Limited Edition items, which can be devilish to find as inventories wear thin in parts of the country.

It’s also a great way for me to find out about newer Limited Editions. Like the Candy Corn Kisses that showed up there last week. I immediately searched all my best spots (RiteAid, WalMart, Target & CVS) with no results. So I emailed Hershey’s ... they confirmed that they exist at least.

Then yesterday I gave Target another try and there they were!

I must admit, they’re lovely. The wrappers are silver, yellow and orange with little flags that say Candy Corn.

Upon opening the bag I can only say that they stink to high heaven, like fake butter flavor (perhaps I should be concerned that there’s diacetyl in there and I’m going to get Pop Corn Workers Lung?).

Unwrapping the foil, they are super-cute layers just like candy corn. Wider on the bottom than normal candy corn, the proportions may be a little squat, the colors are also rearranged, with yellow on the bottom and orange in the middle, instead of the reverse. I can see why they did it though, it is a pleasant combo.

While I enjoy candy corn that has a slight honey or caramelized sugar taste to it, these go for the buttered corn flavor. I know that the Buttered Popcorn Jelly Belly is one of the most popular, but it’s never floated by boat. Same with this one ... a little caramely white chocolate would have made me very happy. This doesn’t. The fake butter just turns my stomach when I smell it. If I don’t smell it, then they’re not bad, not too sweet with a light little hit of salt.

Unlike many of the other white confection offerings from Hershey’s, these are not white chocolate (which has a cocoa butter base). The ingredients go like this:

Sugar, Vegetable Oil (Palm, Shea, Sunflower and/or Safflower Oil), Nonfat Milk, Lactose, Reduced Minerals Whey (from milk), Milkfat. Contains less than 2% or less of Natural and Artificial Color (Yellow 6, Yellow 5 Lake), Soy Lecithin, PGPR, Tocopherols (to maintain freshness).

I think the idea is cute and I could actually see these being a great cookie decoration (as suggested on the package with a peanut butter cookie recipe). Other than that, I’m going to just admire the photos and the idea and keep the package way from me. I couldn’t decide what rating to give this, mostly because my personal revulsion to fake butter flavor (it actually gives me a headache when someone makes microwave popcorn) is, well, a personal thing. The product is well executed ... I just wish they called them Butter Kisses and made them like real candy corn, not that Milk Maid Caramel Candy Corn. My nose said give them a two out of ten. But looking at the photos, I can’t help but bump it up to a four out of ten ... what can I say, I’m a sucker for design!

UPDATE 9/25/2007: I found out from Hershey’s that this is an item that they created exclusively for Target. So don’t bother looking anywhere else but Target & eBay for these.

UPDATE 9/5/2008: The Candy Corn Kisses have returned for 2008. I found them both at Target and Rite Aid, so they are enjoying a wider release this year.

Related Candies

1. Rising Cost of Candy - A Brief Study of Hershey Prices
2. Vanilla Creme Kisses
3. Hershey’s Mint Truffle Kisses
4. Limited Edition Hot Cocoa Kisses
5. Elvis Reese’s Peanut Butter and Banana Cup
6. Kisses Coconut Creme
7. Kisses Chocolate Truffles
8. The Mint Kisses: Chocolate Mint & Candy Cane
9. Gourmet Goodies Candy Corn
10. Peanut Butter Kisses
11. Cherry Cordial Creme Kisses
12. Head to Head: Rolo vs Caramel Kisses
13. Butterfinger Crisp

Last year a new product came out called SweeTarts Squeez. It’s basically a paste made of a little water and mashed up SweeTarts.

I never reviewed them here even though I tried them because it only came in two flavors: Cherry and Green Apple.  Since they’re not really my favorite flavors, I didn’t think it was a good idea to evaluate them based on those, I kept thinking that they’d come out with the classic Grape, but no such luck.

However, last week I saw an announcement that Wonka was bringing out a Shockers version of the Squeez line and one of their first flavors was going to be lemon. I enjoy the SweeTart Shockers ... they’re blisteringly sour (I’m salivating just thinking about them!) and the citrus flavors are undoubtably the best.

When I was a kid I used to make a version of this Squeez stuff. It involved taking Pixy Stix (or the cheaper and less flavorful Filled Plastic Fruit) and a little water and making a paste. This could then be spread (or glopped) onto lips as a special tangy lipgloss (and facial peel) or slathered onto a green apple Jolly Rancher Stix. As a special treat, sometimes I made something else: take a little single-serve pack of saltines (like you get with your soup at a diner), smash the crackers completely into a fine power while still in the wrapper. Then carefully open the package at the top and pour in as many Pixy Stix as you have. Jello-O powder will also do in a pinch. Add a small amount of water, enough to form a dough. Mash completely together. Spread on other crackers or eat by squeezing bits onto the tongue. )If the dough is particular firm, small balls can be created, lined up on the windowsill to dry for later.) The combination of salt, light crunch from the crackers that weren’t completely soggy yet and the sour of the Pixy Stix was, well, an interesting way to pass a half hour in front of the TV watching old episodes of the Monkees.

But enough of about that!

Shockers Squeez comes in a little tube, larger than a travel size of toothpaste. Flip the top and squeeze some out onto your finger. The texture is rather like toothpaste, except that the “grit” actually dissolves.

Tongue Trippin’ Lemon smells pretty good, but not much like lemons. It smells like that cloud of powder the comes out of a can of Country Time Lemonade Drink Mix. It’s immediately sour and then has a metallic lemon note that tastes like, well, lemonade drink mix, but a bit more intense.

The sugary part feels slightly cool on the tongue, like Pixy Stix do.

Mouth Blastin’ Berry also has a similar tangy scent, like a fruit punch drink mix.

The thick paste isn’t quite as tart as the lemon, but still similarly sour like a SweeTart. Unlike Shockers, which start tangy and then become rather sweet, these are tart all the way.

There are probably many ways to eat these, I found that just squeezing a dot out of the tube and wiping it up with my finger and into my mouth was the cleanest and most satisfying. Amy, from next door, just put it directly onto her tongue in much larger proportions that I did. The blue does make the tongue, well, bluish.

I could see experimenting with other candies, like putting it on Red Vines or maybe throwing a dollop on a lollipop every once in a while. I can say that it doesn’t go very well with coffee, but you probably already knew that. I haven’t tried it on Saltines ... I could only find some Rye Crisps left over from the last time I got soup ... that’s not so hot. They might make a good icing accent on some cupcakes. I’m eager to try them on my Peeps! But the price is kind of prohibitive. Regular SweeTarts are far cheaper.

These are available in stores now. I saw them at the checkout at Von’s last week (the same day that these samples from Wonka arrived).

The first ingredient is high fructose corn syrup. The last two ingredients are yellow #5 and sodium benzoate. Kosher.

Related Candies

1. Candy Blox
2. Giant Pixy Stix
3. SweeTarts: Chicks, Ducks & Bunnies (2006)
4. SweeTarts Rope

These Zip Bomb candies showed up recently in one of the 99 Cent Only stores that I visit. I thought maybe they were a knock-off of Zotz available in little pouches.

Warning: this is another story about how I am pretty much willing to try anything, no matter how much evidence is presented that it’s a bad idea.

All wasn’t sitting well with me long before I opened the package. Part of that was the name Zip Bomb ... that’s a malicious file that’s delivered as a .zip file with a gajillion files inside that will occupy scanning software while worse things go on. Perhaps these candies came along before that, right?

Of course this made me wonder what was going to happen when I put it in my mouth. Would it occupy my taste buds while it stole my wallet? Would it swell to the size of a 63 terabyte file with tart foaming sherbet and tasty hard candy and then delete all my photos?

The other thing that struck me as odd is that the website listed on the back of the package, www.zipkidz.com, doesn’t exist. Oh, it might have or might someday, but as I type this, there is no website to visit for fun and games. A search on Archive.org reveals that there was a website at that address back in 2004-05. Hmm, could this code on the wrapper that says 021902 mean that they were made back in 2002?

Yes, these are the things that suddenly fill me with dread when looking at a package of candy.

But you know, I’ve already taken their photo ... what fun would this be if I didn’t go all the way and eat some?

The little individual candies were cute in their wrappers. Sure, the design wasn’t the most sophisticated in the world, but they were bright and colorful and said which flavor was which.

The candies themselves were bigger than Zotz, round instead of oval.

After putting one in my mouth I can tell you that they’re not like Zotz! The hard candy has an intense sour layer on top. Seriously sour ... but it fades away pretty quickly to reveal a simple tart and flavorful hard candy.

At the center of the candy (whether you’re a sucker or a cruncher) is a small reservior of sour powder. I was expecting it to foam, but it didn’t. It was just sour.

The hard candies were nicely flavored, each one distinct. Blue Raspberry was my favorite followed by Strawberry and then Green Apple. Watermelon was odd, probably because I just have a stubborn part of me that thinks that sour watermelon is wrong.

I wanted more of the sour center than I got in the candies, there seemed to be more hard candy than I wanted. They’re fun and something I probably would have enjoyed more as a kid than I do now, but I have to say, that first blast of throat-tingling sour is pretty fun at any age. They were probably much better when they were fresh.

Note: the candies were made in Thailand.

Related Candies

1. Sour Bloops
2. Zotz Apple
3. Skittles Fresh Mint
4. Bonkers