Even if you don’t go trick-or-treating, it’s hard to avoid Halloween candy this time of year.
For those of us who aim to eat healthfully, there are three basic approaches to candy, Halloween candy in particular:
1. Abstain, which is easier said than done.
2. Carefully select treats that you can justify, choosing candies that are, say, lower in fat or calories than others, or take longer to eat.
3. Enthusiastically indulge in what will truly satisfy your craving for candy, but do so in moderation and know when to quit.
I don’t intend to indulge at all. I’ve worked too hard to lose weight this year to introduce candy into my balanced eating regimen. But if I were going to, I’d probably choose a chocolate- rich candy bar, taking time to enjoy every morsel and making sure to accommodate the extra calories by cutting back elsewhere in my diet that day. To me, then, finding the candy that delivers the biggest chocolate punch (those whose ingredients list chocolate first) would be key.
I’ve scoured a lot of candy packages lately, and I highly recommend you read the nutrition facts and ingredient lists for the candies you choose. One suggestion: Don’t fool yourself into thinking those containing nuts or fruit are nutritious or otherwise good for you. Candy is candy and should play a limited role in your diet.
Whatever tack you take, it’s best to devise your Halloween game plan ahead of time. Here’s a guide to help you sort out your options.
But is it chocolate?
When you eat chocolate, you’re consuming fat and the extra calories fat imparts. Some bars are more worth that concession than others.
You can eat one two-piece snack size Kit Kat bar for 70 calories, 30 of them from fat.
Or you could choose a Reese’s peanut-butter cup for 110 calories, 50 of them from fat.
I’d take the Reese’s cup, because its first ingredient is milk chocolate and its second is peanuts (before sugar, dextrose, salt and preservatives).
Kit Kat’s ingredient list starts with sugar, then wheat flour. (Allergy alert! People with gluten intolerance or celiac disease should read labels extra-carefully. You’d be surprised how many candies contain wheat.) You don’t get to the main event, chocolate, until the fifth ingredient.
The first ingredient in a Baby Ruth bar is sugar, then roasted peanuts, then corn syrup. The bars also contain hydrogenated palm kernel and coconut oil; these count as trans fats, which are bad for your cardiovascular system. Ingredient No. 7 is cocoa, right after high- fructose corn syrup.
A Snickers bar lists milk chocolate as its first ingredient and peanuts second. Next on the list is corn syrup, followed by sugar. Because ingredients are listed in descending order by weight, if I’m in the mood for chocolate, I’d rather see it listed first than seventh.
Think that coconut in Mounds and Almond Joy makes those bars healthful? Think again. The first ingredient in each is corn syrup, and a single bar has 80 calories, half from fat. Each supplies a gram of dietary fiber, which is not enough to do you any good, and no different from many other bars. Plus, they have high percentages of saturated fat among chocolate bars: 18 percent of the daily value for saturated fat for Mounds, 15 percent for Almond Joy.
A Nestle’s Crunch bar is a good bet: Sixty calories, about half from fat, and nothing in it but milk chocolate and crisped rice.
Similarly, a plain Hershey’s bar has about 66 calories, half of them from fat (including 10 mg of cholesterol). But its only ingredient is milk chocolate. Add almonds and that same 14 grams yields about 73 calories, 43 from fat.
Plain M&M’s have about 73 calories, 30 from fat, and 5 mg of cholesterol. Add peanuts and, in 18 grams, you get 90 calories, 45 from fat. Like the almonds in Almond Joy, those peanuts don’t appear to add much nutritional value.
Some chocolate-coated candies are low in fat. A serving of Raisinets has about 63 calories and about 23 from fat, which the package represents as “30 percent less fat than the leading chocolate brands.” But don’t be swayed by the package note that calls Raisinets “a natural source of fruit antioxidants.” Yes, raisins contain some antioxidant vitamins, but not enough to show up on the Nutrition Facts panel. Vitamin A and vitamin C values are listed as zero.
Junior Mints and York Peppermint Patties score well in the low-fat category. An 18-gram box of Junior Mints has 80 calories, 15 from fat. The first ingredient is sugar, the second semi-sweet chocolate, the third corn syrup.
A 14-gram Peppermint Patty has 50 calories, more than 8 from fat, but corn syrup comes ahead of semisweet chocolate, and after sugar, on the ingredient list. It also contains egg whites (allergy alert!).
