Halloween candy isn’t only for kids. Neither are Halloween parties. So, if you’re an adult, why not have some wine with your candy – whether it’s the candy you bought for trick or treaters, what you snag from your kid’s collection – or from the inevitable candy filled bowl on just about every counter.

There are all kinds of opinions about what wine goes well with what candy. Experts will tell you that you should consider the wine’s sweetness, acidity, flavor and whether or not it’s sparkling or still. Since most candy is really sweet – especially the Halloween trick or treat kind –“outsweeting” the candy is tough to do!

Ultimately, your choice boils down to what you like, but after doing some research, here’s a synopsis of the recommendations that I’ve found.

Some Pairing Suggestions

Fresher, fruit forward wines are great to pair with fruity candy. Sparkling rosés go really well with gummy bears and worms and Starbursts, especially the pink and yellow ones. The strawberry and cherry notes in the wine mirror some of the red fruit flavors in the candy and the refreshing fizz helps to wash the sugar down. Other Starburst recommended pairings are light reds such as Pinot Noir, St. Laurent, Zweigelt or Gamay or sweet whites such as Reisling, Moscato, Malvasia.

Nerds go best with sparkling wines like champagne, proseco, cava, and sparkling rose.

The high acidity in Chenin Blanc off sets the sweetness in Jollyranchers.

Skittles can also pair well with the sweet whites or dry whites such as white table wine, Sauvignon Blanc, and Pinot Grigio.

The sweet creaminess of the yellow, orange, and white mellow crème kernels of Candy Corn and pumpkins can pair with sweet whites, and rich whites such as Chardonnay, Marsanne, or Viognier, sparkling wines, and Port. The trick is to pick a Chardonnay or other wine that retains enough vibrant acidity to cut through the super sweet sugary candy. Or you can just keep shoving handfuls of candy corn into your mouth without allowing time to sip!

KitKat and 3 Musketeers are lighter and fluffier and pair well with sparkling wines and medium reds such as red table wine, Sangiovese, Zinfandel, Merlot, and Grenache.

Try a Muscat with sugary Smarties.

Tootsie rolls will always stick to your teeth and pair well with the light reds.

Butterfingers go with the rich whites and the dessert wines such as late harvest ice wines, Sherry, Port, Tawny Port, and Ruby Port.

Twix pairs with dessert wines and with bold reds such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Monastrell, Malbec, and Syrah. The sweetness of ice wines will also likely taste delicious with the caramel, cookies, and chocolate in Twix.

The cherry undertones of Pinot Noir pair nicely with Twizzlers – you could even dunk!

Reese’s pieces, those wonderful bites of peanut butter and chocolate, can go with the light reds, bold reds, and dessert wines. Or try a cool climate California Syrah which will complement the chocolate in the peanut butter cups and with other peanut butter candy bars.

Another recommendation for nutty, chocolate candy is to pair it with wine that balances the sugar and cream from the milk chocolate and the salt from the peanuts and peanut butter. The strong acidic factors in Spanish Sherry make it a great pairing because it cuts through the fat and, depending on the aging, tends to have a nice nutty quality. German Rieslings also pair well.

The strong, sweet, creamy taste of Port pairs quite well with chocolate, caramel, and peanuts like the combo found in Snickers and with classic Caramels.

Heath Bar (one of my all time favorites) goes well with the dessert wines.

M&Ms, while they’re melting in your mouth and not in your hands, can be washed down with the bold and medium reds. Try a red Zinfandel.

For the coconut lovers, the harsh tannins in Cabernet Sauvignon pair well with the dark chocolate and coconut in Mounds.

Sour Patch Kids – maybe aptly named — don’t seem to pair well with anything except a puckering mouth, but you can try a bubbly NV Rosé.

If there are some caramel apples to bite into, the toastiness of caramel and butterscotch might pair well with  Muscat or Gewürztraminer because the acidity of the white wine should stand up well to the sweetness of caramel. If you want to focus on the apple flavor, try ice wine, Sauternes, or a late-harvest Sauvignon Blanc.

And why not pair a Grand Cru Bordeaux with a 100 Grand Bar?

And then there’s chocolate with huge range of strong flavors including sweet, bitter, fruity and even acidic – flavors that don’t pair well with standard dry table wine. After a bite of a rich chocolate it won’t have any flavor. So try a sweet dessert wine instead. Its richness will enhance the flavor of both.

Here are some things to consider for chocolate pairings: think about choosing a wine that’s as sweet as the chocolate or try pairing by color – the darker the chocolate, the darker the wine. consider the bitterness and texture. Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon and dark chocolate are an excellent classic pairing because the bitterness in the chocolate is similar in texture to the tannins in the wine.

Milk chocolate Hershey bars will always be someone’s favorite and they go with most wines, especially the rich and sweet whites and the light and medium reds. With the more bitter Hershey’s Dark chocolate, try a red Syrah.

Have a Happy Halloween!

The post What Wine Will You Drink With Your Halloween Candy? appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

It’s candy corn time! Those chewy and sweet little tri-colored triangles have celebrated over 130 birthdays and are still going strong. Here are 8 things you probably never knew about candy corn:

1. Candy corn, created in the 1880s by the Wunderlee Candy Company, was popular among farmers who loved the corn kernel shape that looked different from a lot of other candy. The Goelitz Candy Company, famous for their candy corn, began selling their brand around 1900. They still make candy corn today, but their company name has changed to the Jelly Belly Candy Company (guess what else they make!).
2. Candy corn, which has been around for a century and three plus decades, is a “mellow cream,” or a type of candy that’s made from corn syrup and sugar with a marshmallow kind of flavor. It tastes rich, but it’s actually fat-free.
3. The original three colors of candy corn — orange, yellow, and white — mimic a corn kernel, although each piece of candy is about three times the size of an actual kernel. The bottom of the triangular candy is yellow, it’s orange in the middle, and the pointy end is white.
4. Although 75% of the annual candy corn production is for Halloween, you can find it year round in varying holiday colors:

• Indian corn has a chocolate brown wide end, orange center and pointed white tip, and is often available around Thanksgiving
• Blackberry cobbler candy corn can be found in eastern Canada around Halloween
• Reindeer corn, the Christmas variety, is red, green, and white
• Cupid corn for Valentine’s Day is red, pink, and white
• Bunny corn for Easter is only a two-color candy and comes with a variety of pastel bases (pink, green, yellow, and purple) with white tips

5. Brach’s Candy Corn, which is a very familiar brand

• has nineteen pieces of candy corn per serving
• a serving has140 calories (7.4 calories per kernel), zero grams of fat, 70 mg of sodium, 36 grams of carbs, and no protein
• a large bag of Brach’s candy corn is 22 ounces and has about 300 pieces
• ingredients in Brach’s candy corn: sugar, corn syrup, confectioner’s sugar glaze, salt, honey, dextrose, artificial flavor, gelatin, titanium dioxide color, yellow 6, yellow 5, red 3, blue 1, sesame oil.

 6. According to the National Confectioners Association:

• candy makers will produce nearly 35 million pounds of candy corn this year which is equal to about 9 billion individual kernels of corn, enough to circle the moon nearly 21 times if laid end-to-end
• candy corn is so popular that it has its own day; October 30 is National Candy Corn Day.

7. How candy corn was and is made:

• Originally it was made by hand.
• Sugar, water, and corn syrup were cooked into a slurry (a thin mud consistency) in large kettles. Fondant (a sweet, creamy paste made from corn syrup, sugar, and water) and marshmallow were whipped in to give it a smooth texture and a soft bite.
• The hot mixture was poured into “runners,” or hand-held buckets that held 45 pounds of candy mixture. Men called “stringers” walked backwards as they poured the steaming mixture into trays coated with cornstarch and imprinted with kernel-shaped molds. They made three passes; one each for orange, white and yellow.
• Today, the recipe is similar but production is mechanized. A machine fills trays of kernel-shaped holes with cornstarch to hold the candy in corn triangle shapes. The holes are partially filled with white syrup, then orange syrup, followed by yellow syrup. The mold is allowed to cool, the mixture hardens for about 24 hours, then a machine empties the trays, the kernels to fall into chutes, and finally the candy corn is glazed to make it shine.

8. A survey of Americans found:

• 8%think the whole piece of candy corn should be eaten at once
• 7% think you should be start eating at the narrow, white end 10.6% like to start eating at the wider yellow end.

The post Eight Sweet Things To Know About Candy Corn appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

Should jellybeans come with a warning label: “STOP NOW or you’ll keep eating until they’re gone?”  It’s pretty darn hard not to love those little nuggets of sweetness that come in multitudes of colors and flavors and get stuck in your teeth!  The proof: Americans eat 16 billion jellybeans at Easter – if they were lined up end to end they would circle the earth nearly three times.

Where Did Jellybeans Come From? 

The gummy insides of jellybeans are thought to have originated from the centuries old treat, Turkish Delight. Jellybean outsides are just like the colored hard candy coating, developed in the late 17^th century, for the Jordan almond.

The modern jellybean became popular during the American Civil War when Boston’s William Schraft encouraged citizens to send candy to Union soldiers.  Jellybeans were the first bulk candy and they became one of the staples of the penny candy that was sold by weight in the early 1900s. Because of their egg shape, which can be taken as representing fertility and birth, they became popular as Easter candy around 1930.

Standard jellybeans come in fruit flavors but there are now a huge number of flavors like spiced, mint, tropical, popcorn, bubble gum, pepper, and cola.  They also come in a sugar free version (seems weird, but true – don’t you wonder how many chemicals are in those?). Teenee Beanee jelly beans and Just Born jellybeans are Pareve & O/U; Jelly Bellies are certified OU Kosher.

Do You Eat Them By The Handful Or Pick and Choose?

Do you eat your jellybeans one at a time, or do you gobble them up by the handful? What about colors and flavors – do you pick out your favorites or just eat them altogether?

• 70% of kids aged 6–11 say they prefer to eat Easter jellybeans one at a time
• 23% say they eat several at once
• Boys (29%) are more likely to eat a handful than girls (18%)
• Kids say their favorite Easter jellybean flavors are cherry (20%), strawberry (12%), grape (10%), lime (7%), and blueberry (6%)

What’s In The Hard Shelled Nugget Of Sweetness?

Jelly beans are primarily made of sugar and also usually contain gelatin (Jelly Bellies don’t), corn syrup, modified food starch, and less than 0.5% of citric acid, sodium citrate, artificial flavors, confectioners glaze, pectin, carnauba wax, white mineral oil, magnesium hydroxide, and artificial colors.

The traditional jellybean has flavor only in the shell. In 1976, the Jelly Belly (Goelitz) Candy Company introduced their gourmet jellybeans, Jelly Bellies, which are smaller and softer than the traditional kind and are flavored both inside and outside. Jelly Belly makes about 50 different flavors of gourmet jellybeans.

Calories In Jellybeans:

Even though they may give you Technicolor insides, jellybeans are fat free.  On average:

• 10 small jellybeans (11g) have 41 calories, no fat, no cholesterol, no protein, and 10.3 grams of carbs
• 10 large jellybeans (1 ounce or 28g) have 105 calories, no fat, no cholesterol, no protein, and 26.2g carbs
• 10 Jelly Bellies have 40 calories (4 calories a piece), or about 100 calories in a single serving (25 beans)

Jelly Bellies

• Jelly Bellies were invented in 1976 and were the first jellybeans to be sold in single flavors and a menu of flavor choices.
• It takes 7 to 21 days to make a single Jelly Belly jellybean.
• Very Cherry was the most popular Jelly Belly flavor for two decades until 1998, when Buttered Popcorn took over. Very Cherry moved back into the top spot by only 8 million beans in 2003.
• Jelly Bellies were the first jellybeans in outer space – they were sent on the space shuttle Challenger (1983) by President Reagan, a big jellybean fan.
• Jelly Bellies don’t contain gelatin and are suitable for vegetarians, but some strict vegans may have issues with the beeswax and shellac used to give them their final buff and polish.
• Jelly Belly jellybeans do not contain any wheat, rye, barley, or oats in the basic recipe. The modified food starch used to manufacture them is cornstarch and all ingredients are free of dairy.

The post Jelly Beans: One by One or by the Handful? appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

Here’s another way to think about Halloween candy — how much walking will it take to work off the candy calories?

According to walking.com:

• 1 Fun Size candy bar (Snickers, Milky Way, Butterfingers, etc. is about 80 calories. You’d need to walk 0.8 miles, 1.29 kilometers, or 1600 steps, assuming you cover one mile in 2,000 steps.

• 2 Hershey’s Kisses are about 50 calories. You’d need to walk 0.5 miles, 0.80 kilometers, or 1000 steps, assuming you cover one mile in 2,000 steps.

• 2 Brachs caramels are about 80 calories. You’d need to walk 0.8 miles, 1.29 kilometers, or 1600 steps, assuming you cover one mile in 2,000 steps.

• 1 mini bite-size candy bar (Snickers, Milky Way, Butterfingers, etc.) is about 55 calories. You’d need to walk 0.55 miles, 0.88 kilometers, or 1100 steps, assuming you cover one mile in 2,000 steps.

• 1 Fun Size M&M packet – Plain or Peanut, is 90 calories. You’d need to walk 0.9 miles, 1.45 kilometers, or 1800 steps, assuming you cover one mile in 2,000 steps.

• 1 mini Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup is 33 calories. You’d need to walk 0.33 miles, 0.53 kilometers, or 660 steps, assuming you cover one mile in 2,000 steps.

• 1 full size chocolate candy bar (Snickers, Hershey, etc.) is about 275 calories. You’d need to walk 2.75 miles, 4.43 kilometers, or 5500 steps, assuming you cover one mile in 2,000 steps.

• 1 King Size chocolate candy bar (Snickers, Hershey, etc.) is about 500 calories. You’d need to walk 5 miles, 8.06 kilometers, or 10000 steps, assuming you cover one mile in 2,000 steps.

• 1 small Tootsie Roll is 25 calories. You’d need to walk 0.25 miles, 0.40 kilometers, or 500 steps, assuming you cover one mile in 2,000 steps.

If You Ate . . .

2 Brachs caramels, 2 Hershey’s Kisses, 1 small Tootsie Roll, 1 Fun Size candy bar (Snickers, Milky Way, Butterfingers, etc.) 1 mini bite-size candy bar (Snickers, Milky Way, Butterfingers, etc.), 1 Fun Size M&M packet – Plain or Peanut, 1 mini Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, 1 full size chocolate candy bar (Snickers, Hershey, etc.), 1 King Size chocolate candy bar (Snickers, Hershey, etc.)… the grand total is 1188 calories. You’d need to walk 11.88 miles, 19.16 kilometers, or 23,760 steps, assuming you cover one mile in 2,000 steps.

For kids — as a guideline, to burn off 7000 calories a one hundred pound child would have to walk for almost 44 hours or play full-court basketball for 14.5 hours.

Don’t Worry Too Much …

Just remember – we and our bodies have an amazing ability to compensate for occasional holiday overeating – as long as those holidays don’t turn into weeks that turn into months.

So, enjoy your trick or treating and all of the ghosts, princesses, pirates, animals, cars, trains, skeletons, witches, and any other creature that rings your doorbell shouting “trick or treat.”

Happy Halloween!

The post Want To Walk Off Your Halloween Candy? Go This Far . . . appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

Jellybeans: do you think they should they should come with a warning label, “STOP NOW or you’ll keep eating until they’re gone?”

Seriously – it’s pretty darn hard not to love those little nuggets of sweetness that come in multitudes of colors and flavors and get stuck in your teeth!

The Birth Of The Jellybean

The gummy insides of the jellybean might be related to the centuries old treat, Turkish Delight. And their outsides bring to mind the colored hard candy coating, developed in the late 17^th century, for the Jordan almond.

The modern jellybean became popular during the American Civil War when Boston’s William Schraft encouraged sending candy to Union soldiers and the jellybean held up well.

Jellybeans were the first bulk candy. They were first sold by weight as penny candy in the early 1900s – bulk jellybeans for nine cents a pound.

Around 1930 they became popular as Easter candy because of their egg shape, which represents spring, fertility, and resurrection.

The Many Flavors And Colors Of Jellybeans

Standard jellybeans come in fruit flavors but there are a huge number of flavors available — some goofy, some sophisticated — like spiced, mint, gourmet, tropical, popcorn, bubble gum, pepper, and cola.  They also come in a sugar free version (seems weird, but true).

Whatever your flavor preference, Americans eat a whole lot of jellybeans – around 16 billion at Easter — enough to circle the globe nearly three times if all the Easter jellybeans were lined up end to end.

Handfuls Or One By One — And What Flavor?

How do you eat your jellybeans? Do you go for handfuls at a time or pick and choose your colors and eat them one by one?

• 70% of kids ages 6–11 prefer to eat Easter jellybeans one at a time
• 23% say they eat several at once
• Boys (29%) are more likely to eat a handful than girls (18%)
• Kids say their favorite Easter jellybean flavors are cherry (20%), strawberry (12%), grape (10%), lime (7%), and blueberry (6%).

What’s In The Hard Shelled Nugget Of Sweetness? 

Jellybeans are primarily made of sugar and also usually contain gelatin (Jelly Bellies don’t), corn syrup, modified food starch, and less than 0.5% of citric acid, sodium citrate, artificial flavors, confectioners glaze, pectin, carnauba wax, white mineral oil, magnesium hydroxide, and artificial colors (takes some of the fun out of them, doesn’t it?).

Originally, there was just the traditional jellybean, which has flavor only in the shell. In 1976, the Jelly Belly (Goelitz) Candy Company introduced gourmet jellybeans. Unlike traditional jellybeans, Jelly Bellies are smaller and softer than the traditional kind and are flavored both inside and outside. Jelly Belly makes about 50 different flavors of gourmet jellybeans.

How Many Calories Are In Jellybeans?

Even though they may give you Technicolor insides, jellybeans are fat free.  On average:

• 10 small jellybeans (11g) have 41 calories, no fat, no cholesterol, no protein, and 10.3 grams of carbs
• 10 large jellybeans (1oz or 28g) have 105 calories, no fat, no cholesterol, no protein, and 26.2g carbs
• 10 Jelly Bellies have 40 calories (4 calories a piece), or about 100 calories in a single serving (25 beans)

Some Jelly Belly Jellybean Trivia

• Jelly Bellies were invented in 1976. They were the first jellybeans to be sold in single flavors and to come with a menu of flavor choices.
• It takes 7 to 21 days to make a single Jelly Belly jellybean.
• Very Cherry was the most popular Jelly Belly flavor for two decades until 1998, when Buttered Popcorn took over. Very Cherry moved back into the top spot by only 8 million beans in 2003.
• Some jellybeans do contain gelatin, but Jelly Bellies don’t. According to the Jelly Belly website, they are suitable for vegetarians although strict vegans may have issues with the beeswax and shellac that are used to give them their final buff and polish.
• Jelly Belly doesn’t use wheat, rye, barley, or oats in the basic recipe for Jelly Belly jellybeans but does use cornstarch as the modified food starch.
• Jelly Bellies have been certified kosher for the last two decades by the Kashrut supervision of KO Kosher Service.  Since 2007 all Jelly Belly products have been certified by the Orthodox Union. Teenee Beanee jelly beans and Just Born jellybeans are Pareve & O/U; Jelly Bellies are certified OU Kosher.

For 99 cents you can get the lowdown on Easter Candy.  Check out my ebook Easter Candy Facts and Fun on Amazon.  You’ll spend less than you would on jelly beans.  It’s also way fewer calories than a chocolate bunny!

The post Jellybeans: Do You Eat Them By The Handful Or One-By-One? appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

It’s pretty darn hard not to love those little nuggets of sweetness that come in multitudes of colors and flavors and get stuck in your teeth!

Americans eat 16 billion jellybeans at Easter – if they were lined up end to end they would circle the earth nearly three times.

Where Did Jellybeans Come From?

The gummy insides of jellybeans are thought to have originated from the centuries old treat, Turkish Delight. Jellybean outsides are just like the colored hard candy coating, developed in the late 17^th century, for the Jordan almond.

The modern jellybean became popular during the American Civil War when Boston’s William Schraft encouraged citizens to send candy to Union soldiers.  Jellybeans were the first bulk candy and they became one of the staples of the penny candy that was sold by weight in the early 1900s. Because of their egg shape, which can be taken as representing fertility and birth, they became popular as Easter candy around 1930.

Standard jellybeans come in fruit flavors but there are now a huge number of flavors like spiced, mint, tropical, popcorn, bubble gum, pepper, and cola.  They also come in a sugar free version (seems weird, but true – don’t you wonder how many chemicals are in those?).

Teenee Beanee jelly beans and Just Born jellybeans are Pareve & O/U; Jelly Bellies are certified OU Kosher.

Do You Eat Them By The Handful Or Pick and Choose?

Do you eat your jellybeans one at a time, or do you gobble them up by the handful?  What about colors and flavors – do you pick out your favorites or just eat them altogether?

• 70% of kids aged 6–11 say they prefer to eat Easter jellybeans one at a time
• 23% say they eat several at once
• Boys (29%) are more likely to eat a handful than girls (18%)
• Kids say their favorite Easter jellybean flavors are cherry (20%), strawberry (12%), grape (10%), lime (7%), and blueberry (6%)

What’s In The Hard Shelled Nugget Of Sweetness?

Jelly beans are primarily made of sugar and also usually contain gelatin (Jelly Bellies don’t), corn syrup, modified food starch, and less than 0.5% of citric acid, sodium citrate, artificial flavors, confectioners glaze, pectin, carnauba wax, white mineral oil, magnesium hydroxide, and artificial colors.

The traditional jellybean has flavor only in the shell. In 1976, the Jelly Belly (Goelitz) Candy Company introduced their gourmet jellybeans, Jelly Bellies, which  are smaller and softer than the traditional kind and are flavored both inside and outside. Jelly Belly makes about 50 different flavors of gourmet jellybeans.

Calories in jellybeans:

Even though they may give you Technicolor insides, jellybeans are fat free.  On average:

• 10 small jellybeans (11g) have 41 calories, no fat, no cholesterol, no protein, and 10.3 grams of carbs
• 10 large jellybeans (1 ounce or 28g) have 105 calories, no fat, no cholesterol, no protein, and 26.2g carbs
• 10 Jelly Bellies have 40 calories (4 calories a piece), or about 100 calories in a single serving (25 beans)

Jelly Bellies

• Jelly Bellies were invented in 1976 and were the first jellybeans to be sold in single flavors and a menu of flavor choices.
• It takes 7 to 21 days to make a single Jelly Belly jellybean.
• Very Cherry was the most popular Jelly Belly flavor for two decades until 1998, when Buttered Popcorn took over. Very Cherry moved back into the top spot by only 8 million beans in 2003.
• Jelly Bellies were the first jellybeans in outer space – they were sent on the space shuttle Challenger (1983) by President Reagan, a big jellybean fan.
• Jelly Bellies don’t contain gelatin and are suitable for vegetarians, but some strict vegans may have issues with the beeswax and shellac used to give them their final buff and polish.
• Jelly Belly jellybeans do not contain any wheat, rye, barley, or oats in the basic recipe. The modified food starch used to manufacture them is cornstarch and all ingredients are free of dairy.

If you want more fun facts about Easter Candy head on over to Amazon for Easter Candy Facts and Fun.  It’s a lot of fun info for just 99 cents.

The post Jelly Beans: Little Nuggets of Sweetness appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

Do you remember getting — or giving – those pastel candy hearts and secretly hoping that you’d get one with a special message?  Maybe you still share them with those special to you – or help your kids pick the ones they want to share.

“Be Mine,” “Kiss me,”  “XOXO”

The brightly colored hearts with familiar sayings — known as conversation hearts, motto hearts, and sweethearts — have been a Valentine’s Day treat since 1902. Their manufacturer, NECCO, the New England Confectionery Company in business since 1847, sells more than 8 billion candy conversation hearts a year.

How Did Candy Conversation Hearts Get To Be A Symbol Of Valentine’s Day?

Giving a gift of candy with an inscribed message can be traced back to the American colonists who shared homemade hard candy with messages etched into the surface with their sweethearts.

Years later after developing the process of printing red vegetable dye mottos on candy, the founder of NECCO and his brother turned this tradition into a business.

The candy’s original shape wasn’t a heart, but a seashell shape called a “cockle.” A message was written on a colored slip of paper that was wedged into the cockle’s shell.

NECCO started producing candy with mottos stamped on them in 1900, but the candy was shaped like horseshoes and baseballs that allowed for longer printed sayings like “How long shall I have to wait?” and  “Pray be considerate.” The candy called Sweethearts wasn’t shaped as a heart until 1902.

The original candies with printed sayings were called “motto hearts.”  The sayings and flavors have been updated over the years with new ones added periodically. Some of the newer flavors are strawberry, green apple, lemon, grape, orange, and blue raspberry and new sayings include “Tweet Me,” “Text Me,” “You Rock,” “Soul Mate,” “Love Bug,” and “Me + You.”

Candy Heart Facts

NECCO still uses the original recipe, process, and machines they used at the turn of the century to make the candy, producing 100,000 pounds a day. It takes about 11 months to produce the more than eight billion pieces — or about 13 million pounds – of colorful candy sweethearts that are sold in the six weeks before Valentine’s Day.  The little hearts with messages account for 40% of the Valentine candy market, just behind – you guessed it – chocolate!

Although you’d be hard pressed to call them nutritious, the candy hearts are fat free, sodium free, and a caloric bargain at about 3 calories for each small heart and about 6 calories for each larger “Motto” heart.

The post Memories Of Childhood: Heart-Shaped Candy With A Special Message appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

Come on, ‘fess up. What do you do?  Do you just randomly grab candy out of trick or treat bags – or are you more selective?  If your kids go trick or treating, when they get home do you dump everything in the bag on the table and go through it to hunt down your favorites?

Like it or not – candy rules on Halloween. Adults may dread the easy accessibility of candy – it’s everywhere – but secretly, a whole lot of us can’t wait to get our hands on our favorite kid candy.

Americans buy nearly 600 million pounds of candy for Halloween. On average, we eat 24 pounds of candy a year, probably a whole lot of it right around this time. The most popular types of candy, in order, are:  chocolate, chewy candies, and hard candy.

What Do You Go For First?

Trick or Treat Bags – plastic pumpkins and colorful bags loaded with a collection of sweet memories and some dental nightmares.

If you’ve ever swiped candy from your kid’s trick or treat bag, don’t feel guilty. According to the National Confectioners Association you’re certainly not alone. Ninety percent of parents confess they occasionally dip into their kid’s stash.

And they do it big time! Parents eat one candy bar out of every two a child brings home.  Favorite targets are snack-sized chocolate bars (70%), candy-coated chocolate pieces (40%), caramels (37%) and gum (26%).

How Many Calories Are In That Rick Or Treat Bag — Or Pumpkin?

It’s been estimated that, on average, a child in the US collects between 3,500 and 7,000 worth of candy calories on Halloween night.

Mathematically, it takes around 3,500 calories to gain or lose a pound, so you’re looking at around a pound or two if you would choose to eat all of those mostly sugar and fat candy calories on top of your regular meals.

It’s Just One Night …

One evening of collecting (and eating) candy certainly isn’t going to make anyone overweight or obese.  But a constant bombardment of candy, sweets, and other treats can certainly lead to weight and health challenges.

Try this.  Have a talk with your family – or with yourself — ahead of Trick of Treating to plan on what to do the candy collection.  Is it to be a one-day free for all and then the trash — or will the candy by doled out in measured amounts over a given period of time?  Do what works for your family but it helps if the kids buy into the plan.

What’s amazing is that when kids are offered the option of choosing how much and what kind of candy to eat, most of them don’t go overboard – they make their selections, eat it, and that’s it. It then helps if the candy fades from sight.  It can be doled out in smaller portions day by day – or it can magically diminish in quantity or disappear entirely – just not down the hatch of an all-too-willing adult.

The post How Much Halloween Candy Will You Swipe From Kids’ Trick or Treat Bags? appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

Here are the calories in some popular Halloween candy in case you want to minimize the caloric damage (you didn’t read that wrong — candy has a big range of calories and fat grams):

• Brach’s Milk Maid Caramels: 4 pieces; 160 calories; 4.5 g fat
• Kit Kat:  Twix Miniatures (3 pieces); 150 calories; 7g fat
• Butterfinger: Fun size; 100 calories; 4g fat
• Snickers: Fun size; 80 calories; 4g fat
• Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup:  Fun size; 80 calories, 4.5g fat
• M&Ms: Fun size bag; 73 calories; 3g fat
• Tootsie Rolls: 3 pieces; 70 calories; 1.5g fat
• Brach’s Candy Corn: 11 pieces; 70 calories; 0g fat
• Hershey’s Milk Chocolate: snack size .49-ounce bar; 67 calories; 4g fat
• 3 Musketeers:  Fun size; 63 calories; 2g fat
• Skittles Original Bite Size: Fun size bag; 60 calories; 0.7 g fat
• Tootsie Roll Pop: 1 pop; 60 calories; 0g fat
• Now and Later: 4 pieces; 53 calories; .5g fat
• Peppermint Pattie:  Fun size; 47 calories; 1g fat
• Starburst Original Fruit Chews: 2 pieces; 40 calories; 0.8g fat
• Dum Dum Pops:  1 pop; 25 calories; 0g fat

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It’s candy corn time!  Those little tri-colored triangles have celebrated over 130 birthdays and are still going strong.  Here are 7 things you probably never knew about candy corn:

1.  Candy corn was created in the 1880s by George Renninger of the Wunderlee Candy Company. It was quite popular among farmers who loved the corn kernel shaped candy that looked different than a lot of other candy. The Goelitz Candy Company, famous for their candy corn, began selling their brand around 1900.  They still make candy corn today, but their company name has changed to the Jelly Belly Candy Company (guess what else they make).

2. Candy corn, a type of candy that’s over 130 years old, is a “mellow cream,” or candy that’s made from corn syrup and sugar with a marshmallow kind of flavor. It tastes rich, but it’s actually fat-free.

3. The original three colors of candy corn: orange, yellow, and white, mimic a corn kernel although each piece of candy is about three times the size of an actual kernel. The wide side of the triangular candy is yellow, it’s orange in the middle, and the pointy end is white.

4.  Although 75% of the annual candy corn production is for Halloween, you can find it year round in varying holiday colors. There’s:

•  Brown (chocolate flavored), orange, and white Indian corn for Thanksgiving
• Red, green, and white Reindeer corn for Christmas
• Red, pink, and white Cupid corn for Valentine’s Day, and
• Pastel-colored Bunny corn for Easter

5. A serving of Brach’s Candy Corn – which can be found just about everywhere —  is nineteen pieces and has140 calories (approximately 7.4 calories per kernel)., zero grams of fat, 70 mg of sodium, 36 grams of carbs, and no protein. Candy corn has 3.57 calories per kernel. A large bag of Brach’s candy corn is 22 ounces and has about 300 pieces.  Ingredients in Brach’s candy corn:  sugar, corn syrup, confectioner’s sugar glaze, salt, honey, dextrose, artificial flavor, gelatin, titanium dioxide color, yellow 6, yellow 5, red 3, blue 1, sesame oil.

6. According to the National Confectioners Association, candy makers will produce nearly 35 million pounds of candy corn this year; about 9 billion individual kernels of corn.  It’s so popular that it has its own day; October 30 is National Candy Corn Day.

7.  Originally candy corn was made by hand. Sugar, water, and corn syrup were cooked into a slurry (a thin mud consistency) in large kettles. Fondant (a sweet, creamy paste made from corn syrup, sugar, and water) and marshmallow were whipped in to give it a smooth texture and make it soft to bite.

The hot mixture was poured into “runners,” or hand-held buckets that held 45 pounds of candy mixture.

Next, men called “stringers” would walk backward as they poured the steaming mixture into trays coated with cornstarch and imprinted with kernel-shaped molds. They made three passes; one each for the orange, white and yellow colors.

Today, the candy recipe is still pretty much the same but the production is mechanized. A machine fills trays of kernel-shaped holes with cornstarch to hold the candy in corn triangle shape. The holes are partially filled with white syrup, then orange syrup, followed by yellow syrup. The mold is allowed to cool and the mixture hardens for about 24 hours. Then a machine empties the trays allowing the kernels to fall into chutes. A big sifter shakes loose any excess cornstarch and finally the candy corn is glazed to make it shine.

Candy Corn Flavors

Candy corn and candy corn flavors are big – apparently, according to Time, appearing in booze, bagels, cookies, and beyond. Nabisco released a limited-edition of candy-corn Oreos, exclusively for Target (but they also can be found on Amazon).  They have yellow-and-orange cream filling sandwiched between vanilla wafers. Wal-Mart has candy corn yellow, orange, and white jumbo M&Ms with white chocolate filling.

For more holiday eating tips, strategies, and information check out my book,  The Sensible Holiday Eating Guide:  How To Enjoy Your Favorite Foods Without Gaining Weight, available from Amazon for your kindle or kindle reader.

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