Fun Facts About Candy

Check out some interesting, and fun, facts about an American favorite, candy!  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There is no question that Americans love candy.  We give it to those we love on Valentine’s Day, get it from the Easter Bunny on Easter, ask our neighbors for it on Halloween, and get a stocking full of it from Santa at Christmas.  We eat it at the movies, we eat it at home, and we even eat it all year long while we drive around in our cars.  There isn’t a single thing that candy doesn’t seem to make better, except maybe our next visit to the dentist!  June is National Candy Month and we thought it would be fun to find out the most interesting facts about the one snack everyone can always agree on, candy.

• The man who invented cotton candy, William James Morrison, was a dentist.
• Three Musketeers candy bars got their name because each bar originally came as three pieces, each with a different flavor, vanilla, strawberry, and chocolate, which is the one still used today.
• Snickers, one of the most popular candy bars today, was named after a horse.
• Although Americans eat a lot of candy, we don’t hold a candle to the Germans, who consume twice as much of the sweet treats as we do.
• M&M’s candies are named after the creators, Forest Mars Sr. and Bruce Murrie as is Reese’s cups which were named for Harry Burnett Reese.
• Most traditionally flavored bubble gum is pink because that was the only color dye available when it was invented.
• Soldiers were given Tootsie Rolls during WWII as part of their rations because they held up well over time and in different kinds of weather.
• Easter is one of the big candy holidays and each year candy companies make more than 90 million Easter bunnies and 16 billion jelly beans just for the one day holiday.
• In order to create enough marshmallow chicks and bunnies (like Peeps) for Easter, companies make 5 million every single day throughout the year.
• Almost everyone eats the ears off of their chocolate Easter bunnies before they eat anything else.
• Across the country, red jelly beans are most commonly chosen as the favorite amongst children.
• Halloween, which was traditionally a celebration associated with the fall harvest, is one the second biggest American holiday and the holiday most closely associated with candy.
• Almost every child in America will go trick or treating this year (93%).
• If you laid out all the candy corn produced in a year from end to end, you could circle the Earth more than 4 times.
• More than 75% of the candy given out during trick or treating is bite-size chocolate bars.
• More than half of all children prefer chocolate treats in their trick or treat buckets.
• 90% of parents will sneak a few treats from their children’s trick or treat haul.
• At Christmas, almost 2 billion candy canes will be made for sale.
• Each candy cane has only 55 calories and no fat.
• Despite the close association between candy and Halloween, Christmas is actually the biggest candy sales season of the year.

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