Each Halloween, we are bullied by neighborhood children to buy candy to feed their sugar addiction. We typically choose between two mega candy corporations: Mars and Nestlé. If you want to be a true Floridian, you should abhor Nestlé for stealing our spring water and selling it back to us in plastic bottles.

But the most important thing is taste. If you’re going to have to buy the candy, you might have some leftovers—which means you might as well enjoy the candy you’ll regret eating later.

Make sure the kids are extra grateful this year, as candy prices have gone up considerably.

While the cost of Halloween candy has surged more than 13.1% since last September, the Mars candy bar family became 44% richer during the pandemic increasing their wealth by $32.6 billion. The Mars family is now worth $106.8 billion.

Do you know what’s scary? Corporate greed.

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) October 21, 2022

As much as kids love candy, and maybe we all do, orangutans take a hit for our sweet tooth. Most Halloween candy is filled with palm oil, a mono-crop harvested in horrible conditions for both the laborers and the environment. But some candy is palm-oil free.

Enjoy! 

The Yucky

10. Tootsie Rolls

If you're the kind of person who likes Tootise Rolls, you were probably also the kind of student who reminded the teacher that they forgot to assign homework for the weekend. Our garbage cans are half-full of uneaten Tootise Rolls the after Halloween. The candy's ingredients claims to have cocoa in it, but it looks like goose poop and doesn't taste much better.

9. Good & Plenty

They’re not good! False advertising. And eating just one is more than plenty. Who thought it was a good idea to make a candy that looks AND tastes like medicine? Who is this candy even for? Certainly not children. I have to believe that this is the kind of candy that struck some early lifetime deal with the corporations that run Halloween and they'll be around until the world ends.

8. Smarties

This is a candy for kids who have some deep and dark desire to eat colored chalk. It scratches their itch, knowing they would be ostracized if they took a bite out of their friend’s sidewalk chalk stick.

The Bad

7. Twizzlers

An abomination of the concept of licorice. This is non-alcoholic beer for people who want to eat "licorice."

6. Nerds

Ergonomically designed for people who want to lose half their candy between couch cushions. These unwieldy little sugar pebbles are sure to make your dentists happy as they wedge in between your teeth. The cartoon Nerds are pretty cute, though.

5. Skittles

Skittles would be higher up if they didn’t have bad flavors. You know synesthesia? It's the condition where one sense makes you experience another. For example, seeing a color makes you hear a sound. Eating Skittles kind of reminds me of that. Some chemist over at Mars, Inc. insisted that this is what the color purple tastes like. I disagree.

Also, Skittles might give you cancer.

The Good

4. Snickers

I once saw a kid break off his front tooth on a frozen Snickers bar. We tried to convince him to be more patient, but he wouldn’t hear it, he was really hungry. Even with the missing tooth, he still ate the candy car.

3. Twix

Great texture. I don’t have any funny stories about Twix, they’re just pretty good.

2. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups

Florida’s most popular candy. The rest of the country would probably believe we'd like something crazy like candied gator balls, but we know that the peanut butter and chocolate combo was sent down from God Herself.

Honorable Mention

Candy Corn

I know it's hard for some of you to believe, but candy corn is actually good.

The candy corn hate has got to stop. I don’t know why or when it became popular to attack candy corn. When’s the last time you actually had it? It’s like some kind of mass candy-hating psychosis. Like when people just started repeating that the word “moist” was ugly. Grow up!  Stop being such a sheep and eat your fake corn.

The Best Candy, Hands Down

1. York Peppermint Patties

This is for a sophisticated candy-appreciator. I like to imagine myself wearing a robe with a snifter of brandy while nibbling on a peppermint disc. You can freeze them and they never get rock solid. It also feels like you brushed your teeth.