Do You Swipe Candy From Your Kid’s Trick Or Treat Bag?

If you do, you can start shedding your guilt because you’re certainly not alone.

Let’s put it another way:  Is it almost a foregone conclusion that there’s Halloween candy in your future?

The candy assault on your senses is pretty hard to escape.   It’s everywhere in glowing Technicolor on shelf after shelf in big box stores, supermarkets, and drug stores.  It’s on desks, in restaurants, and even on the receptionist’s desk in my veterinarian’s office in a nice purple bowl with a dog bone painted on the side.

How Much Candy?

Halloween and the week afterward accounts for about 5% of all candy consumed for the year. The most popular types, in order, are:  chocolate, chewy candies and hard candy.

What’s In Your Kid’s Trick or Treat Bag?

If you’ve ever swiped candy from your kid’s trick or treat bag, you’re certainly not alone. According to the National Confectioners Association, 90% of parents confess they occasionally dip into their kid’s stash. I know I sure did.

Parents don’t just sample; they invade their kids’ Trick or Treat bags.  Estimates are that they eat one candy bar out of every two a child brings home.  Their favorite targets are snack-sized chocolate bars (70%), candy-coated chocolate pieces (40%), caramels (37%) and gum (26%).

In Case You Want To Pick The Least Caloric Candy . . .

Here are the calories in some popular Halloween candy – just in case you might want to minimize the caloric damage (no, that’s not a joke, candy has a big calorie and fat gram range)

• Hershey’s Milk Chocolate: snack size .49-ounce bar; 67 calories; 4g fat
• Snickers: Fun size; 80 calories; 4g fat
• Tootsie Rolls: 6 midgee pieces; 140 calories; 3g fat
•  Skittles Original Bite Size Candies: Fun size bag; 60 calories; 0.7 g fat
• M&Ms: Fun size bag; 73 calories; 3g fat
• Butterfinger: Fun size; 85 calories; 3.5g fat
• Tootsie Roll Pop
: 60 calories; 0g fat
• Starburst Original Fruit Chews: 2 pieces; 40 calories: 40; 0.8g fat
• Brach’s Candy Corn: 20 pieces; 150 calories; 0g fat
•  Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup:  Fun size; 80 calories, 4.5g fat
• Peppermint Pattie:  Fun size; 47 calories; 1g fat
•  Kit Kat:  Fun size; 73 calories; 3.7g fat