Confection Conundrum

Image found here.

I can't help it. I will be obsessing about this until it's all over. 

Yes, it's this Halloween candy thing. What can I say. At least I'm not the only one with high fructose corn syrup on my brain. This article from Slate written by Bill Barol and titled Tracking Tricks and Treats, provides a hilarious look at various Halloween treats as evaluated by a highly unscientific candy tasting panel:

I assembled two tasting panels. The children's panel was made up of five kids, ages 3-1/2 to 9, who were convened in two separate groups. The adult's panel consisted of me.

Here is the panel's evaluation of one of the candy groups studied:

The Sweet and the Tart Group. Once past their initial confusion over the concept of sweet-tartness, the kids weighed in decisively in favor of Starbursts. ("They're chewy and stretchy and they pretty much never lose their taste."—Jack) Only one, 4-year-old Eva, evinced any enthusiasm for the SweeTarts: "I never heard of candy that tastes sour," she said, adding, "My shoe came off." For my part, I admired the SweeTart's genre-bending complexity, although the candy has the mouth feel of an Alka-Seltzer. From a nutritional standpoint, it seems worth noting that SweeTarts have basically nothing in them: no fat, no cholesterol, and no sodium. This, combined with their relatively low calorie count—a Giant Chewy SweeTart clocks in at just 40 calories—almost qualifies them as health food, at least compared to the other candies tested. Unfortunately, they also fail to contain any dietary fiber or protein, and their high ratio of sugars to total carbohydrates almost qualifies them as rocket fuel.

Bill and his treat tasters go on to evaluate "the chocolate", "the fruit", and "the fruit and vegetable-based" groups of goodies. Read his article in it's entirety to view their surprising findings.