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A Chicken Coop – or a Basket – of Chocolate Easter Eggs

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Easter Eggs – the Confectionary Type

They’re everywhere and at every price point.  Some are piped with flowers and others are wrapped in foil.  You find them in chain stores, discount stores, and at high end chocolatiers. Easter is the second ranked holiday for candy purchases in the United States (just behind Halloween) and solid, hollow, and filled chocolate Easter eggs are one of the most popular choices of Easter candy.

Hollow and Solid Chocolate Easter Eggs

Today’s Easter eggs are mostly sweet chocolate made from cocoa solids, fat, sugar, and some form of milk. The first chocolate eggs were solid and made of a paste of ground roasted cacao beans. Hollow eggs didn’t come on the scene until sometime later when a type of “eating chocolate” was developed.  By the turn of the 19th century the improved process of making chocolate and newer manufacturing methods made chocolate Easter eggs an Easter gift of choice.

Decorated with Flowers and Wrapped in Shiny Foil

John Cadbury make the first French Eating Chocolate in 1842 but the first Cadbury Easter Eggs didn’t arrive until 1875 and were a far cry from today’s Cadbury Crème egg (which now also comes with caramel, chocolate, and butterfinger filling). Early Cadbury eggs were smooth surfaced dark chocolate filled with dragees.  Early decorated eggs were plain shells piped with chocolate and marzipan flowers. Cadbury Dairy Milk Chocolate appeared on the market in 1905 and helped to boost the sale of chocolate Easter eggs. Today’s chocolate Easter eggs are predominantly milk chocolate and include solid, hollow, decorated, and filled eggs.

Calories in Popular Types of Chocolate Easter Eggs

Chocolate is a high calorie, high fat food.  Some of the most popular chocolate eggs:

Hershey’s Cadbury Chocolate Crème Easter Egg:  1 egg (39g), 180 calories, 8g Fat (5g saturated), 25g Carbs, 2g Protein

Hershey’s Cadbury Crème Egg, original milk chocolate with soft fondant crème center:  1 egg (39g), 170 calories, 6g fat (3.5g saturated), 28g Carbs,  2g Protein

Hershey’s Cadbury Mini Egg:  solid milk chocolate eggs with a crispy sugar shell: 12 eggs (40g), 200 calories, 9g fat(5g saturated), 28g carbs, 2g protein

Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Eggs:  7 pieces, 200 Calories, 12g Fat (7 saturated), 24g Carbs, 3g Protein

Dove Silky Smooth Milk Chocolate Eggs: 6 eggs, 240 Calories, 14g Fat (8g saturated), 26g Carbs, 3g Protein

Dove Rich Dark Chocolate Eggs:  6 eggs (43g), 220 calories, 14g Fat (8 saturated), 26g carbs, 2g Protein

Reese’s Milk Chocolate and Peanut Butter Eggs:  5 pieces (38g), 190 Calories, 12g Fat (6 saturated), 21g Carbs, 4g Protein

M & M’s Milk Chocolate Speck-Tacular Eggs: 1/4 Cup (12 pieces), Calories: 210 Calories, 10g Fat (6 saturated), 29g Carbs, 2g Protein

Solid Milk Chocolate Easter Bunny:  2.5 oz, Calories: average 370

But Isn’t Chocolate Good For Me?

The health benefits in chocolate come from cocoa. Dark chocolate has a greater concentration of cocoa than milk chocolate.  White chocolate, without any cocoa in it, is not really chocolate. In a recent study, German scientists followed 19,357 people for at least 10 years and found that those who ate the most chocolate, (average 7.5 grams a day or .26 oz), had lower blood pressure and a 39% lower risk of having a heart attack or stroke than people who ate the smallest amount (1.7 grams or .06 oz a day). Chocolate, especially dark chocolate, can be heart healthy if it replaces an unhealthy, high calorie snack, but there is still no recommendation for the amount to be consumed to produce health benefits.

SocialDieter Tip:

Chocolate, especially dark chocolate, contains flavonols which have antioxidant qualities and other positive influences on heart health. However, those delicious, pastel wrapped chocolate Easter eggs are caloric and moderately high in fat, one-third of it the type of saturated fat that is not heart healthy. Extra ingredients like crème and caramel fillings can add lots of extra fat and calories. There is no recommended serving size of chocolate to help gain cardiovascular benefits. If you are going to choose a sweet treat, chocolate, especially dark chocolate with a high cocoa concentration, might be a healthier choice than other types of sweets. As with most foods, especially treats –particularly treats associated with a holiday or celebration when we often tend to give ourselves license to indulge – if you are going to enjoy your chocolate, plan on how much you are going to eat, build it into your caloric allowance, stick to your plan, eat in moderation, and enjoy every bit of it.

What’s In Your Easter Basket?

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Peeps, Jelly Beans, Chocolate Bunnies and Candy Easter Eggs

Easter candy nesting in baskets on beds of paper straw.  Brightly wrapped candy stuffed in plastic eggs for Easter egg hunts.  Chocolate smeared over little kids’ faces and indestructible peeps molded into weird shapes before being popped in the mouth.

It’s Easter candy time.  Face it – admit it – Easter candy is seductive.  I dare you to eat one jelly bean or unwrap and savor just one brightly colored mini-chocolate Easter egg.

If you are going to indulge — and sometimes a celebratory treat is worth it — you might as well know a little about your Easter candy sweet treats so you can factor their caloric punch into your eating plan.

Jelly Beans

Oh, those little nuggests of sweetness that come in multitudes of colors and flavors.  Primarily made of sugar, jelly beans also usually contain gelatin, 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).

The gummy inside of the jelly bean may have originated centuries ago from the treat, Turkish Delight.  The outside of the jelly bean is basically the same as the colored hard candy coating, developed in the late 17th century, for the Jordan almond.  The modern jelly bean appeared during the American Civil War when Boston’s William Schraft encouraged sending candy to Union soldiers.  Around 1930, jelly beans, with a shape resembling Easter eggs, became popular as an Easter candy.

Although standard jelly beans come in fruit flavors, there are also spiced, mint, gourmet, tropical, and novelty flavors (popcorn, bubble gum, pepper, cola, etc,) available.  They also now come in a sugar free version (seems weird, but true – wonder how many chemicals are in those).

Jelly beans may give you Technicolor insides, but they are fat free.  On average, 10 small jelly beans (11g) have 41 calories, no fat, no cholesterol, no protein, and 10.3 grams of carbs.  Ten large jelly beans (1 oz or 28g) have 105 calories, no fat, no cholesterol, no protein, and 26.2g carbs.

Marshmallow PEEPS

These vividly colored marshmallow bunnies and chicks were hatched over 50 years ago. They are called PEEPS because the original candy was the yellow chick.  Now produced for many holidays – in seasonal colors and shapes, of course —  they continue to be the subject of numerous design contests (you’d be amazed what you can make out of peeps) and scientific experiments (some claim them to be indestructible). Just Born, the parent company of PEEPS, claims, on their website, to produce enough PEEPS in one year to circle the Earth twice.

For more than a decade, PEEPS have been the number one non-chocolate Easter candy in the U.S. Although yellow is America’s favorite color for PEEPS chicks and bunnies, they also come in pink, lavender, blue, orange and green.  Made of sugar, corn syrup, gelatin, and less than 0.5% of potassium sorbate, natural flavors, dye, and carnauba wax, they are gluten and nut free.  You can even get sugar free PEEPS made with Splenda.  Five little chicks (42g, listed as one serving size) has 140 calories, 0g fat, 1g protein, and 36g carbs.

People have definite PEEPS preferences. Some like them nice and soft, others leave them out in the air to age to perfection so they get a little crunchy on the outside.  They’ve been microwaved (careful, they expand and can make quite a mess), frozen, roasted, used to top hot chocolate, and added to recipes. They don’t toast well on sticks like regular marshmallows – the sugar coating tends to burn. Newspapers have been known to run contests for best PEEP recipes and best PEEP pictures.

SocialDieter Tip:

Many of us have emotional and traditional ties to certain foods – especially ones connected to holidays.  If Easter candy means a lot to you, have some, in moderation.  Just add it into your caloric consumption for the day – or balanced out over the course of several days. The trouble lies with eating handfuls of jelly beans, whole Easter bunnies, crates of chocolate eggs, and barnyards of marshmallow peeps – and then continuing to eat them until the supply runs out.  Make up your mind that you’ll eat a certain amount, commit to only that amount, enjoy it, savor it, and then stop.  Give the extras away, get them out of sight and out of mind.  Dispatch them to where they are not calling your name and they are not within easy reach (the kitchen cabinet is too easily accessible).

My next post will give you the low down on chocolate Easter eggs.

Chocolate Hearts . . .

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During the week before Valentine’s Day, about 1.1 billion boxed chocolates, that’s about 58 million pounds of chocolate candy, will be sold in the United States.

A pound of milk chocolate contains 2300 calories, 140 grams of fat, 270 grams of carbohydrates, and 31 grams of protein. Although a lot has been reported about the heart healthy benefits of chocolate, especially dark chocolate, it is important to remember that it is still a high calorie, high fat treat.

But, a treat is something that is associated with pleasure, and on Valentine’s Day, often with love.  To celebrate the occasion perhaps it’s just fine to enjoy a piece or two.