Halloween Candy: Best and Worst

Every time Jerry Cohen announced that he was going trick or treating on Halloween, his father would look at him quizzically and ask “Why?” The candy he collected from neighbors, after all, just came from his father anyway, the founder and owner of the Economy Candy Store on the Lower East Side, which he began in 1937.
But Little Jerry – he was actually never very little (“I was a big kid”) — enjoyed the ritual. Once he had collected the candy from his neighbors, “I brought it to school and gave it away.”

Now 55 years in the candy business (since he has been working in it “since birth”), Cohen knows a thing or two about Halloween, which is the biggest single holiday for candy stores, and candy companies. This is no surprise: The U.S. Census Bureau says 36 million children ages 5 to 13 go trick-or-treating each year. While there are other things to do for Halloween in New York besides candy, such as the Village Halloween Parade, Economy Candy Store alone sells some 6,000 pounds of bulk candy for Halloween. His wife Ilene has been in the business since 1978. “I met him, we started going out, and he put me right to work.” Yet even the Cohens are mystified by the tradition of giving out candy for Halloween. As it turns out, there are many misconceptions about Halloween candy.

Trick-or-Treating Is Not An Ancient Pagan Ritual
There is evidence of the existence of “Halloween candies” at the turn of the twentieth century, but, according to Lynn Olver, reference librarian at the Morris County Library in Whippany, New Jersey (who has a “passion for food history”), trick-or-treating began in earnest only after World War II, a phenomenon of the American suburb.

Candy Corn Is Not The Halloween Candy
There is an enormous amount of information available about candy corn from the National Confectioners Association, which bills itself as “one of the oldest, most respected trade associations in the world.” It was founded in 1884 – shortly after candy corn was invented reportedly by George Renninger of the Wunderle Candy Company and shortly before the multicolored concoction of corn syrup, honey, and sugar was mass produced in an elaborate process by the Goelitz Confectionery Company. (The Web site of the National Confectioners Association includes an interesting Confectionery Timeline, whose first entry is “1854 The first packaged box of Whitman’s chocolate debuts” and whose latest entry is considerably less coherent or reassuring: “1999 Sound Bites Lollipops from Cap Candies is the first radio-lollipop combination in the growing interactive candy segment.”)

Yes, it is true that many people associate candy corn with Halloween and vice-versa. It is also true that the day before Halloween, October 30th, is National Candy Corn Day, although it is not clear what one is supposed to do to celebrate, other than buy candy corn. And it is further true, according to the association, that more than 35 million pounds of candy corn will be produced this year: “That equates to nearly 9 billion pieces—enough to circle the moon nearly 21 times if laid end-to-end”

But, as the National Confectionery Association itself points out, “Candy Corn is not just for Halloween anymore. Candy makers have made Reindeer Corn for Christmas, Cupid Corn for Valentine’s Day and Bunny Corn for Easter.”

The Web site Serious Eats lists candy corn as one of the 10 worst things to hand out (or get) on Halloween: “The most polarizing candy of all. The fruitcake of Halloween; it just never goes away. If you love them, fine. But don’t subject the rest of us haters to the sickeningly sweet triangle that tastes like neither candy nor corn.”

For its part, the Goelitz Confectionery Company has renamed itself the Jelly Belly Company, and, while it continues to manufacture candy corn, it seems far more interested in its jelly beans than its candy corn.

As a candy man on the ground, Jerry Cohen can tell you, candy corn is not even in the top five of Halloween candies. “We only sell about a pound of candy corn out of every 10 pounds of candy we sell during Halloween.”
So what candy do people buy for Halloween?

Hierarchy of Halloween Candy
According to Jerry Cohen, the top sellers on Halloween are

Mary Jane
A peanut butter and molasses flavored taffy-type candy with peanut butter in the center, originally made in 1914 by The Charles N. Miller Co. Miller’s three sons named it after their favorite aunt.

Tootsie Roll
An oblong piece of chewy, chocolate candy invented in 1896 by Leo Hirshfield, an Austrian immigrant who opened a small candy shop in New York City, producing the first individually wrapped penny candy from a recipe he brought from Europe. (Some believe it was actually first made in Hoboken). The company now calls itself Tootsie Roll Industries

These are followed by Bitter Honey and Monster chocolate eyeballs.
Economy also does a brisk business in gummy brains and wax fangs, but you can’t really call those candies. A surprising number of people have written their definitive list of the top ten Halloween candies — such as here and here — but it’s mostly on the Web, so it can’t be trusted.

Hierarchy Of Halloween Candies That Are The Worst For You
Taffy-like candies, such as Mary Janes and Tootsie Rolls, are reportedly the worst for your teeth. It turns out, according to Dr. Sanjay Gupta — and if this does not prove the existence of a divinity, what would? — that chocolate is better for your teeth: “Chocolate dissolves in your mouth instead of getting ‘stuck’ in between your teeth as a caramel candy would. Chocolate also contains tannins, which aid in killing bacteria in the mouth.”

People Do Not Put Poison In Halloween Candy
Snopes.com, a Web site that debunks urban legends, has a well-annotated article entitled Halloween Poisonings in which the author finds no evidence of their ever having been a “genuine Halloween poisoning” — one in which a child randomly has been given a cyanide-laced candy or razor-embedded apple while going trick-or-treating. A documented case of a child being poisoned by Halloween candy, on October 31st, 1974 in Houston, Texas, turned out to be a filicide — a father deliberately poisoned his son, and blamed it on Halloween. (He allegedly gave the poisoned candy to other children to cover his tracks, but nobody else fell ill.) Ronald Clark O’Bryan was convicted of the crime of murder and executed.

It’s Better To Eat Your Halloween Candy All At Once

This from an article last year on CNN: “although some parents may be tempted to space out the amount of candy their children consume after Halloween, dentists have advice to the contrary: When it comes to teeth, it’s better to eat a whole lot of candy at once than to space out candy consumption over time. Basically, the fewer episodes of candy eating, the better.
“It makes sense, given that cavities form when bacteria in plaque ferments the sugars in candies and creates acid that attacks the tooth’s surface, says Dr. Clarice Law, assistant professor of dentistry at the University of California-Los Angeles School of Dentistry.
“Repeated “attacks” lead to cavities, so eating a bunch of candy — for example, with a meal — and then brushing your teeth is better than spreading that candy out over time. Law doesn’t recommend bingeing but does advise that children limit their candy-eating episodes.”

Consider Bribing Your Child
This advice for parents from an article entitled “Avoid Halloween’s Sugar Shock”:
“Before trick-or-treating, serve a healthy meal so kids aren’t hungry when the candy starts coming in.
Consider being somewhat lenient about candy eating on Halloween, within reason, and talk about how the rest of the candy will be handled before they leave the house.
Buy back some or all of the remaining Halloween candy. This acknowledges the candy belongs to the child and provides a treat in the form of a little spending money.
Be a role model by eating Halloween candy in moderation yourself.
Encourage your child to be mindful of the amount of candy and snacks eaten — and to stop before feeling full or sick.”

A reason why none of this might work: Americans consume more than twice as many pounds of candy a year than vegetables.

Candy Makes You Live Longer
“My father’s 92,” Jerry Cohen says.
Unlike her husband, Ilene Cohen thought maybe it was healthier to sell candy than to eat it. Their son Mitchell Cohen, now 24, grew up as that proverbial kid in the candy store. “Everybody was so jealous,” says Ilene, “but I was so afraid that I wouldn’t keep any candy in the house.”
Halloween packaging isn’t all that reassuring. A Halloween-size Snickers has 80 calories, even a small taffy has about 40, and each one of those itty-bitty candy corns has more than 3 1/2 calories. Jerry Cohen has a simple solution. “Anybody who starts reading the nutrition label,” he says, “we don’t allow them in the store.”

Photographs by Jonathan Mandell except the close-up of the candy corn, the Mary Janes and the Tootsie Roll and the bucket of eyeballs. The bucket and the candy corn pictures come from the Economy Candy Store Web site. The others come from their respective corporate sites.