Eat This Not That! The Best and Worst Halloween Candy

A cocker spaniel weighs about 24 pounds. You know what else weighs 24 pounds? The heft of candy the average American gobbles down each year, and you can bet a big chunk of that falls within the month of October. Consider these numbers: Three miniature Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups fill your belly with more sugar than a glazed doughnut; half a pack of Skittles has more sugar than a scoop of Haagen-Dazs Cookies and Cream Ice Cream; nine Twizzlers carry as many calories as a Wendy’s Double Stack Burger.  Make every swap outlined here just once and you’ll save nearly 400 calories.

5. Worst "Fun Size" Candy Bar

Butterfinger Bar (fun size bar)

100 calories, 4g fat (2 g saturated), and 10g sugars

Aren’t food marketers clever? By calling it “fun,” they’ve pulled your attention away from the fact that candy bars are flab-inducing logs of concentrated fats and sugars. There’s nothing fun about that.

Eat This Instead!

3 Musketeers (fun size bar)

63 calories, 2g fat (1.5 g saturated), and 10g sugars

4. Worst Classic Fruit Candy

Brach's Airheads (3 pieces)

140 calories, 1.5g fat (1 g saturated), and 19g sugars

Here’s the basic formula for an Airhead: Sugar and filler carbohydrates, artificial colors and flavors, and partially hydrogenated oils—the source of trans fat. Dum Dums might not be nutritional paragons, but they do have two noteworthy advantages over Airheads:  1. No heart-wrecking oils, and 2. They’re made from hard candy. That means they dissolve slowly on your tongue, letting you enjoy the sweetness over time and preventing you from feverishly tearing through Airheads.

Eat This Instead!

Spangler Dum Dum Pops (3 pops)

77 calories, 0g fat, and 105g sugars

3. Worst Miniature Candy Bars

Twix Miniatures (3 pieces)

150 calories, 8g of fat (6 g saturated), and 15g sugars

Twix has the worst saturated fat profile of any candy in your kid’s trick-or-treat bag. Think about it like this: Each one of this bite-sized candies carries 10 percent of the saturated fat you should consume in an entire day. Switch to Tootsie Rolls and you’ll cut your calories by more than half and trim your total fat intake by a whopping 81 percent. 

Eat This Instead!

Tootsie Roll (3 pieces)

70 calories, 1.5g fat (.5 g saturated), and 9.5g sugars

2. Worst Chewy Candy

Brach's Milk Maid Caramels (4 pieces)

160 calories, 4.5g fat (3.5 g saturated), and 16g sugars

Doesn’t Milk “Maid” sound a lot like Milk “Made”? But rest assured—they’re not the same. This candy contains a couple milk derivatives (whey and “lipolyzed butter fat”), but it hardly constitutes a dairy product. Plus, 90 percent of the fat is saturated. That’s bad news for your heart. If you enjoy the challenge of fighting chewy candy out of your teeth, switch over to Now and Laters and save more than 100 calories per serving.

Eat This Instead!

Now and Later (4 pieces)

53 calories, .5g fat (0 g saturated), and 10g sugars

1. Worst Seasonally Themed Candy

Reese's Pumpkin

170 calories, 10g fat (3 g saturated), and 16g sugars

This one should send your gimmick radar into the red zone. If it were flavored with pumpkin puree that would be one thing, but it’s not. It’s an oversized peanut butter cup shaped in a pumpkin-like mold. And what price do you pay for such fanciful novelty? Nearly two-thirds more calories than a regular Reese’s peanut butter cup. Let’s face it—half the candy purchased at Halloween is used to create a festive atmosphere. Stick with Candy Corn and you’ll save yourself the calorie hangover. 

Eat This Instead!

Brach's Candy Corn (11 pieces)

70 calories, 0g fat, and 14g sugars

As Halloween approaches, let’s embrace the spirit of the season by making mindful choices about our treats. Opting for better candy not only satisfies our sweet tooth but also supports healthier habits for ourselves and our little ghouls and goblins. With a variety of options that are lower in sugar, made with natural ingredients, or even packed with nutrients, we can enjoy the festive spirit without compromising our well-being. This Halloween, let’s celebrate with delicious treats that nourish our bodies and delight our taste buds, proving that indulging can be both fun and responsible!

-Love Debi

DB WELLBEING